Anyone who has ever embarked on a weight loss journey has probably heard that if you fast or significantly reduce your calorie intake, you can naturally shrink your stomach. If you are wondering if this is true and if it is possible to naturally shrink your stomach by eating less or going on a fast, this article should help you better understand how the human stomach works.
What Causes Your Stomach to Shrink?
When you reduce the number of calories you eat for a length of time, you may notice that you begin to feel full sooner, even though you are eating a smaller portion. This may lead you to believe that you have figured out how to shrink your stomach, but that is not what really happened.
Your body was designed with a built-in communication system that constantly sends and receives signals to keep everything working properly. There are nerves that are part of this system that send signals between your stomach and your brain, called vagus nerves, that tell you when you have eaten enough and are full. These nerves transmit information at about the speed of a sloth, and it takes about 20 minutes for your brain to get the message that your stomach is full, which is why when you eat fast, it makes it easier to overeat.
When you continue to eat smaller meals, your stomach does not actually shrink, but these vagus nerves will begin to send signals of fullness after you eat smaller amounts of food. In a way, you could say they can be trained by you and your eating habits, but it is also possible for them to pick up on patterns of overeating, which will then require more food in your stomach to trigger the fullness signals. So, for those of you who asked, “Does our stomach really shrink if we portion control for some time?” The answer is that it does not actually physically get smaller, but your vagus nerves learn your preferred fullness level to send out your fullness signal by observing your eating habits over a period of time.
Can Your Stomach Shrink from Not Eating?
Not exactly; this is a long-standing myth, and your stomach does not stretch out and lose its elasticity because it was designed to stretch to be four times larger than its original size. It was also designed to return to its original size once the food that it contains digests and empties out.
You may also have heard that your stomach can shrink when you lose weight, but this is also not entirely accurate. The size of your stomach is not determined by your weight, and people who are naturally slim can have a stomach that is the same size as someone who suffers from obesity.
A fact that is true is that eating food that is healthier and low in calories can trigger weight loss and reduce your percentage of body fat and the volume of visceral fat you are carrying around your midsection. This can make it appear like your stomach is smaller, but you have just eliminated some excess belly fat and not changed the size of your actual stomach.
How Can I Make My Stomach Smaller?
The only way to make your stomach physically smaller is through some type of medical intervention. Today, we have both surgical and non-surgical options available to choose from.
Gastric Sleeve Surgery
Most individuals who choose to undergo surgery choose the gastric sleeve, and it is the most often performed type of bariatric surgery because it is the least invasive out of the surgical options.
Gastric sleeve surgery permanently removes almost 75% of your stomach tissue and creates a new, smaller stomach by using surgical staples to secure the cut edges together. This surgery requires four or five external incisions, a hospital stay that can last up to three days, and a recovery period of between four and six weeks.
The gastric bypass and duodenal switch bariatric surgeries also reduce the size of your stomach, but they also re-route a portion of your intestine, so some of the food you consume bypasses the digestion process. This limits your portion sizes but also prevents your body from absorbing all the calories you consume, so they are often used for individuals with severe obesity.
Reducing Your Stomach Size without Surgery
Today, we are fortunate to have alternative options to surgery that can limit the amount of food we can eat during one meal. These procedures are done entirely without incisions or surgery using a special tool called an endoscope and are performed as an outpatient procedure.
The endoscope looks a bit like a thin, hollow hose and has a tiny camera attached. It is carefully lowered down through your mouth and throat, allowing the doctor to gain access to your stomach. Your expertly qualified Reveal Weight Loss doctor can navigate the procedure with precision using the live video feed sent from the tiny endoscopic camera. The procedures that can shrink the size of your stomach without surgery include gastric balloons and endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG).
Gastric Balloons
Gastric balloons do not alter the size of your actual stomach, but they do reduce its usable capacity while they are inside. A gastric balloon is only used temporarily for anywhere from six to eight months, and then it is removed. It does not make any permanent changes to your stomach or digestive system.
The Orbera and Spatz3 balloons are the two FDA-approved devices on the market in the U.S. today and are placed in an individual’s stomach to create a perpetual feeling of fullness. The balloon is lowered down the endoscope in a deflated state and then filled with a saline solution until it reaches the size of a medium grapefruit. Once it is inflated, it takes up almost 75% of the space in the stomach, which significantly limits the amount of food that can be eaten.
After the allotted amount of time, the balloon is removed and the stomach returns to its normal state. The goal of a balloon weight loss program is to teach the individual life skills that will promote a healthy weight and become lifelong habits.
Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (ESG)
ESG is a procedure that has recently been FDA-approved that can make your stomach smaller without surgery. The ESG stomach tightening procedure itself has been used safely and effectively for many years and has produced some amazing weight loss results.
During the procedure, the doctor gains access to the patient’s stomach, and without using any incisions or cutting anything, strategically folds their stomach in such a way that it is made significantly smaller. Then, full-size sutures are placed in targeted areas to hold it in the new, smaller shape. When researchers compared non-surgical ESG to surgical gastric sleeve, it was reported that patients who underwent ESG lost as much or more weight than those who had the surgery.
Additionally, surgical patients had activity restrictions during their four-to-six-week recovery time, but there were no restrictions for ESG patients, who had an average recovery time of three to seven days.
Contact Reveal Weight Loss in New Jersey
There is no reason to keep struggling with weight loss and trying to figure out how to navigate your way through the challenges that come with it all alone. Contact Reveal Weight Loss today and set up an appointment to speak to some of the most knowledgeable experts in weight management, who understand the complexities of weight loss and the many challenges that come with it. The Reveal Weight Loss team offers proven strategies and tools that can help you overcome these obstacles and succeed in reaching your goals.
The team at Reveal Weight Loss has helped many people just like you who were struggling to lose weight on their own reach their goals, and we can help you too. Take the time today to schedule a consultation and learn more about the non-surgical options we offer that can help you reach a healthy weight and improve your health.
