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Eat Small Meals: Why Is This Important After Bariatric Surgery? - Dr. Fobi (VIDEO)

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Eat Small Meals: Why Is This Important After Bariatric Surgery? - Dr. Fobi (VIDEO)
Eat Small Meals: Why Is This Important After Bariatric Surgery? - Dr. Fobi ...
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Dr. Mathias Fobi explains why patients need to eat smaller meals throughout the day after having bariatric surgery.

Dr. Fobi:
As I explained to you, surgery is a tool we give the patients and when I talk to patients in layman’s term, I let them know that what we do in surgeries like taking a car that has a 25-gallon tank capacity, cutting that tank and leaving only one gallon available for you to put gas. So when you go to the gas station you come out and put in a gallon of gas. Well that limits first how far you are going to travel.

So mentally you know you are not going to go on a planet trip to Vegas when you have just a gallon of gas. Number two, you can only go so much and then that gas runs out. Number three, if you try to put in two gallons of gas the rest of it is going to spill over. So with weight loss surgery limiting the size of the stomach limits how much the patient can eat, limits how much the patient is going to acquire to eat.

See, when you go to a McDonald’s and you’ve had the Fobi pouch you are not going to go for a big meal or double Mac because you know you can’t eat it psychologically, you turn to go for a simple hamburger and that limits how much you can eat. Now, those restrictions exist and if the patient follows those directions they would do well, but a patient who is very smart can beat that operation. They can do what you will do when you have just a gallon of gas.

A patient that you’ve taken the tank and reduced it to a one gallon tank, can get up the map and map out where there’s a gas station every seven miles and they can stop every seven miles and fill up that tank and they can go from here to New York. The same thing happens with this surgery. You’ve limited the size of the pouch. If the patient wants to beat it, they can eat a small meal every 20 minutes and by the end of the day they would have eaten exactly the same quantity as you and I who did not have surgery, and patients do this. We call them grazing.

Grazing means the patient just eats all the time. See, they start breakfast from 8 o’clock and finish at 11:30 and they start lunch from 5:00 or from 12:00 and finish at 5:00; start dinner from 6:00 and finish at 10:00. So they beat the surgery because the main purpose of the surgery is to reduce the quantity you are taking, and so patients can find a way to beat that routine. That is why support groups are very important.

We have nutritionists and psychotherapists as part of our team and when these patients come, we talk to them about eating sitting down and spending 20-25 minutes with a meal and eating only three times a day, to avoid snacks and between meals to only drink water or non-calorie drinks – that is what makes the surgery effective. It’s a tool that has to be used appropriately.

Dr. Mathias A.L. Fobi, M.D., F.A.C.S.:
Dr. Mathias A.L. Fobi, is an internationally recognized bariatric surgeon, who has changed the shape of Hollywood heavyweights such as Etta James and American Idol’s Randy Jackson. MAL, as he is known among friends, was born in Nkwen, a small village in Cameroon, West Africa. He is a member of the first batch, class of 1965, 0f Sacred Heart College in Mankon Bamenda in Cameroon. He came to the USA through the African Scholarship Program for American Universities (ASPAU) in 1966. This was a scholarship program that was inaugurated by President Kennedy along with the Peace Corps Program.

Keywords:
Condition: Obesity, Morbid Obesity, Weight Loss, Morbidly Obese

Related Terms: StomaphyX™, Weight Loss, Bariatric Surgery, LAP-BAND®, Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, Gastric Sleeve, Revisional Bariatric Surgery, Nutrition, Overweight, BMI, Body Mass Index, Decreased Mobility, Comorbidities, Diabetes, Hypertension, REALIZE®, GERD, Bariatric Seminars, REALIZE® Band, Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery, StomaphyX™

Expert: Dr. Mathias A.L. Fobi, Mathias A. L. Fobi, M.D., Dr. Fobi, Doctor Fobi, Bariatric Surgeon Dr. Fobi

Expertise: Incisionless Bariatric Surgery, Bariatric Surgery, LAP-BAND®, Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, Gastric Sleeve, Revisional Bariatric Surgery, Sleeve Gastrectomy, Fobi Pouch

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