What Chrissy Metz Gets So Wrong About Weight Loss
In a recent episode of This Is Us, Kate, the lead character played by actress Chrissy Metz, declares she's getting gastric bypass weight loss surgery despite her season-long effort to lose weight by *trying* to change her drinking and eating habits, exercising a bunch, and attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings with the overweight boyfriend she met there.
Although Chrissy has already said she'd be down to lose weight if her character's storyline called for it, Ellen DeGeneres had some questions about this when the actress appeared on The Ellen Show earlier this week. Ellen asked Chrissy how she would keep up with her character's weight loss if Kate underwent gastric bypass surgery, "because that's a fast fix," Ellen said.
"It is a fast fix," Chrissy responded. While both women are correct that that a surgical intervention can expedite weight loss in some patients - in the best-case scenarios, gastric bypass patients can shed 20 to 40 pounds within the first one to two months - calling it a fast fix might suggest that it's an effortless shortcut.
However, earlier this year, Cosmopolitan.com spoke to full-sized model Rosie Mercado, who'd recently lost 250 pounds with the help of a gastric sleeve. "It's still been a journey full of sweat, tears, and lots of dedication," she said, defending herself against haters who downplay the difficulty of her particular path to weight loss.
While weight loss surgery can surely help people reach their weight loss goals, surgeons who perform the procedure see firsthand the way their patients still struggle. "Sometimes, surgery is the only option for obese patients suffering from associated medical problems like diabetes and high blood pressure, but they still need to make lifestyle changes for the surgery to be successful, "says Dr. Andrea Bedrosian, M.D., assistant professor of surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center.
So Chrissy is right when she later adds that food typically isn't the problem among people with weight issues; often, eating behaviors that trigger obesity are simply a symptom.
Still, gastric bypass patients who make zero effort to eat better and exercise won't necessarily lose weight. They also risk regaining any pounds they lost on the liquid diet they're required to following leading up to surgery to reduce liver inflammation that can make stomach surgery extra risky, and the weight they lose in the month that follows, which calls for another all-liquid diet designed to let their insides heal. Post-op, certain foods like steak and break may remain off limits because they're just too difficult to digest, and the same goes for meals any larger than the size of a standard palm, since surgery that shrinks or constricts the stomach leaves much less room for food.
The bottom line is that losing weight and keeping it off is hard no matter how you do it. So there's really no such thing as a fast fix.
Chances are, Chrissy's character Kate will realize this as the plot of This Is Us unfolds. (FWIW, Chrissy subtly suggested to Ellen that her character might not go through with gastric bypass surgery after all.) Either way, Chrissy doesn't seem too concerned about keeping up with whatever transformation This Is Us creators decide to write in for Kate. "I hope I get to lose weight, because that's, like, a win-win for me, [to be] motivated in a different way this time," she told Ellen. Here's to hoping both Kate and Chrissy get the ending they're after.
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