The FDA is considering, ” should a woman who is 5 ft. 6 in. and weighs 186 be eligible for lap band surgery.” I say, eat healthy and skip the lap band surgery. Eating healthy avoids obesity, the cost of surgery, the risk of surgery, and the psychological trauma of surgery. Eating healthy avoids obesity-dependent chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers.
Imagine this. After the lap band surgery, the patient will have to control the amount of food she eats anyway. Otherwise, the weight will come right back – slowly. And, all of the risk of obesity-caused diseases.
Controlling the amount of food she eats is…eating healthy.
A few months back, I recall speaking with a woman who had had lap band surgery 1 year ago. She was eating from a bag of potato chips. I thought, “what a waste of time.” What a waste of risk going under the knife – even if it is laparoscopic.
Supposedly, patients are screened to ID viable candidates who will get the best results from the lap band surgery – that is lose weight and keep it off. But, as my friend at the barbershop demonstrated, we must always control how much and what we eat.
We at Precise Portions define healthy eating as eating the right amount of the right foods into the right proportions.
Eating the right foods means eating:
- low-sugar – leave behind foods that have sugar added to it, like pastry, sweetened cereal, soda pop
- low-fat – skip foods high in saturated fat like bacon, hot dogs, sausage, cheese, and reduce the amount of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats because they have as many calories as saturated fats. Focus on lean meat.
- high-fiber – eat more non-starchy veggies like spinach, broccoli, collard or mustard greens (without the ham hocks), tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, bokchoy, etc.
How to eat the right amount of food and the right proportion of food groups?
Have a look at our portion control plate – it says it all.
The plate is first divided in half. The top half of the plate is reserved for non-starchy vegetables. That equals 2 servings at 25 calories per serving (50 calories total).
The lower half of the plate is divide in half. The right quarter is reserved for protein.
- Lean protein (45 calories per 1 oz serving) Recommend 3 oz portion. Examples: Fish without breading, turkey or chicken (white meat no skin), 2 egg whites, etc.
- Medium Fat Meat (75 calories per 1 oz serving) Examples: Turkey or chicken (with skin), fish fried, pork chop, 4 oz Tofu (soy product), etc.
- High Fat Meat (100 calories per 1 oz serving). Examples: hot dogs,bacon, sausage, cheese, processed sandwich meats, read more…
The left quarter of the plate is reserved for starchy veggies and grains (80 calories per serving). Examples:
- Legumes (Beans & Peas) 1/2 cup serving: Garbanzo/chick peas, black beans, lentils, split, etc.
- 3 oz potato baked or boiled
- Cereals & Grains: (1/2 cup) oatmeal, grits, pasta, rice, couscous; (1/2 cup) dry cereal sweetened; (3/4 cup) dry cereal unsweetened; Bread product 1 oz (1 slice of bread; (1/2) hot dog or hamburger bun).
A friend of mine said, “The money for the surgery may have been better invested in behavior modification. People (including myself) need to understand why/when they overeat and develop alternatives to food as coping methods.” In other words we need to understand our relationship with food and GET BACK IN CONTROL!