The Importance of Exercise During Your Weight Loss Journey
Exercise is an essential part of any weight loss journey, especially those that include bariatric surgery.
If you’re unclear about how bariatric surgery works, you might think that having a procedure like gastric sleeve or gastric bypass eliminates the need for exercise altogether. Weight loss surgery helps people all over the world shed excess body weight, fight obesity, and change their lives for the better — so how could working out possibly improve on that?
As it turns out, regular exercise is an extremely important part of anyone’s weight loss journey, especially when that journey includes bariatric surgery. Learn more about how exercise and surgery can help you keep excess weight off for good.
Bariatric Surgery and Exercise — Better Together
It helps to think of bariatric surgery and physical exercise as complementary strategies helping you conquer obesity on two fronts. To start with, bariatric surgery changes the way your body interacts with food on a physical and metabolic level. The procedure makes your stomach smaller, which means you’ll naturally eat less and feel fuller sooner. It also changes how your body processes nutrients, making it easier to keep your weight down.
However, changing your diet is not the only way to achieve a healthy, strong, and lean body. That’s where exercise comes in! Working out helps you lose weight (and keep it off) by putting the energy you gain from eating healthily to good use and keeping your body in tip-top shape. After bariatric surgery, you should complete a light to moderate intensity workout three times a week in order to burn fat, rev up your metabolism, and increase mobility.
Surgery and Exercise Achieve Lasting Results
If you want to supercharge the amazing results you’ll achieve with weight loss surgery, it’s time to get moving! Physical exercise enhances the numerous benefits of bariatric surgery in fascinating ways. For instance, exercise can help you:
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Lose Weight: Crush your weight loss goals faster by incorporating exercise into your weekly routine. Lean muscle eats up a lot of calories, even at rest, so as you work out and get stronger you’ll also get slimmer.
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Live Longer: Did you know that people who exercise between two to eight hours a week live at least 29 percent longer than those who don’t? Exercising regularly keeps your mind and body active for years to come.
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Increase Joint Flexibility: Joints become more supple the more you move them, so exercise can quite literally put a spring in your step.
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Improve Cardiac Health: Aerobic exercise strengthens your heart, blood vessels, and lungs, which drastically reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.
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Stay Motivated After Surgery: The best way to celebrate your slimmer, post-surgery body is to move it! The most exciting part about having weight loss surgery is seeing all of the amazing new things your body can do afterward. Once you start exercising more frequently, you won’t want to stop!
Still, exercise isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to weight loss — you’ll also have to make smart food choices. When exercise is combined with bariatric surgery and a healthy diet, you’ve got a winning strategy for combating obesity.
Hit the Ground Running!
Contact the weight loss professionals at Long Island Laparoscopic Doctors today! Our team is well-versed in everything related to bariatric surgery, including how to keep up an exercise routine after your procedure. Give us a call and we’ll walk you through your weight loss options.