Exercise and Activity After the LAP-BAND

Your weight loss will depend on the amount of food you eat and the amount of exercise and activity you undertake. The more you burn up, the thinner you will be. The LAP-BAND works primarily by facilitating a reduced food intake. As you start to lose weight, it becomes easier to be active. The more you take advantage of that, the better weight loss you will have, the healthier you will be and the better you will feel. The initial weight loss allows you to be more active. This activity increases the weight loss, which then allows you to be even more active. Your weight spirals down through the combination of less eating and more activity. Conversely, if you are unable or do not increase your activity, the amount of weight loss will be less. Someone with extensive arthritis, for example, may not be able to increase activity very much and should not expect to have as good a weight loss as a result. We will be encouraging you to become as active as possible.

It is not only good for your weight loss, it also helps your health in general and it improves your feeling of well-being, confidence and self-esteem. We suggest you think about activity in two ways -as formal planned exercise and as the activities in your normal daily living. Exercise Many patients have never undertaken any exercise in their life. Others have been top athletes when they were younger and have suffered the middle-aged spread. Some will have made a major achievement by spending 30 minutes a day in gentle walking. Others will become true athletes and compete in competitive sports. We want each of you to make a commitment to do the best you can. You must do something every day. Unless physically restricted by a health problem, you should seek to accumulate a total of at least 200 minutes each week in exercise. The LAP-BAND does not make it easier for your to exercise but the weight loss does. With only a few pounds of weight loss will be fitter, lighter, and more able to become active. This will make it easier for you to make the commitment -the commitment to start exercising, the commitment to continue to build your exercise program and the commitment to continue it on a daily basis permanently. We can advise and encourage you but we cannot do it for you. It is going to be up to you. If you make this commitment and maintain a good exercise program, the benefits are extraordinary. Weight loss is the benefit of particular interest to us in this situation but there are many others.

Most importantly, exercise results in an improvement in health and you are likely to live longer. Diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and abnormal fat levels in the blood are improved sharply. Potentially fatal diseases such as heart attacks and stroke are less likely. It has been estimated that, for every mile (1.6 km) you walk, you increase your lifespan by 30 minutes. The processes of aging are slowed, with the heart continuing good function, the lungs better maintaining their ability to take up oxygen, and the bones remaining strong. The lapses of memory are fewer, sleep is improved and depression is less likely. The sense of well-being and depression is less likely. The sense of well-being and health improves your quality of life. You will think more clearly, and work with more energy and stamina.

There are many different forms of exercise and it is worth identifying which exercises best enable you to achieve optimal results. In general, you should put most effort into doing exercises that go under the descriptors of "aerobic" or "cardio." The other forms are strength and flexibility exercises. The aerobic exercises are those that use the large muscle groups continuously for prolonged periods. Vigorous walking is perhaps the best example. Other types of aerobic exercise are bike riding, swimming, and jogging. If you go to the gym, do those activities that involve low-to-moderate effort but which are repetitive, going on for several minutes. You could do a "strength" program using heavy weights and a few repetitions to gain power and body shaping. However, this is not what we are after. The central feature of the aerobic exercises is that they use most of the major muscle groups in the body, in a way that pushes up your heart rate and gets you breathing more quickly and deeply. We want you to try to exercise each day. Make it a part of your life, plan for it, look forward to it. and enjoy it.

If you are doing something that you do not like, you will find excuses to miss it. Soon it is no more. Find the activities that you enjoy. Create variety. Encourage others to exercise with you. There are a few things more powerful in keeping you on your program than a commitment to meet a friend for the activity. Personal trainers are excellent in optimizing your program and providing the stimulus to keep you at it. You should seek to do at least 200 minutes of exercise each week. Ideally, this would be achieved by doing 30 minutes on each day of the week. If your other commitments do not allow for daily exercise, you can exercise on three weekdays and make up the difference on the weekend. It is not necessary to do 30 minutes in one block. It is equally effective if the exercise is divided into two blocks of 15 minutes or even three blocks of 10 minutes. Surely there are few of us so busy that we cannot squeeze in three 10-minute blocks of exercise each day. Just walking up 20 flights of stairs in your office building would do it. Walking 1 mile (1.6 km) down the street would do it. Riding your exercise bike for 10 minutes would do it. Just do it.