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Many people know the frustration of sitting in their doctor’s office and being told to “just eat less and exercise more” to lose weight. For someone who has likely been dieting on and off for years, that advice is more than vague and unhelpful. It is downright offensive. And for parents who are already stretched thin between work, school, activities, and everyone else’s needs, it can feel like one more thing at which you’re failing.
I am a bariatric surgeon and weight loss specialist. But I am also someone who has struggled with my weight for most of my life. My weight has yo-yoed more times than I can count, depending on my job, my stress level, pregnancy, a couple of very effective stints on Weight Watchers, and now GLP-1 medications. I can tell you that a diet only works as long as you can stick to it, and most diets are not built for the long haul. Exercise is helpful and important, but it rarely produces substantial weight loss on its own. If diet and exercise alone worked for most people, I wouldn’t have a job. And if you work and taxi your kids to 10 different activities a week, how are you supposed to have time for regular exercise?
Today there are many options to assist with weight loss. That’s not an endorsement for bingeing on junk food and beer and plopping down on the couch. But it is hopefully a wake-up call for people who have lost faith in their ability to control their own health and weight.
You can’t scroll through Instagram or thumb through a magazine without being bombarded with ads for weight loss medications. It seems like everyone is on a GLP-1, whether they need it or not. It is true that GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide are the safest and most effective weight loss medications we have ever had. They are the closest thing we’ve had to a “magic pill” (or injection), and they can help people lose tremendous amounts of weight and improve their metabolic health when combined with healthy diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices. Medications can make it easier to stick to a strict diet.
But what about the patients who stop? A 2025 study in JAMA Network Open found that about 46% of patients with type 2 diabetes, and about 65% of patients without diabetes, quit their GLP-1 medication within a year. Side effects played a role, and cost and loss of insurance coverage are common reasons patients stop. The good news is that there are other options.
Bariatric surgery has repeatedly been proven to be the most effective and durable treatment for obesity, with an excellent safety record. These procedures are done with minimally invasive techniques like laparoscopy and the da Vinci robot, and they often don’t even require an overnight hospital stay. They come in all flavors, and I firmly believe there is a right surgery for most people. Yet surgeries like sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass, and single anastomosis duodenal switch are still used by fewer than 1% of eligible patients.
Clearly, I am biased toward bariatric surgery. I fell in love with it in residency when I realized we could use surgery to treat medical diseases like diabetes, hypertension, PCOS, and more. But surgery is not for everyone. Luckily, obesity treatment has advanced dramatically in the last few years, and we now have non-surgical procedures that produce weight loss comparable to many medications without the nerves that come with surgery.
One example is the Allurion balloon, a swallowable gastric balloon that received FDA approval in 2026. There’s no endoscopy and no anesthesia: you simply swallow a capsule in the office, the balloon is filled with saline, and about four months later it empties on its own and passes naturally. It comes with nutrition education and counseling, and it can jump-start meaningful weight loss in just four months. Endoscopic techniques are also gaining momentum. The endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is an incisionless procedure that makes the stomach smaller, done entirely through the mouth. We are even performing weight loss surgery with magnets now. It’s called the magnetic duodeno-ileostomy (MagDI), and while it is still a surgery, the recovery is easy and the weight loss is excellent.
At Karas Weight Loss & Wellness, we offer every one of these options. That means we can recommend what is truly right for you, not just the one tool we happen to have. We start with a conversation, not a prescription. Every patient gets a plan built around their health, their goals, and their life. Our team includes a bariatric surgeon, a nutrition educator, a health coach, physical therapists, and a network of mental health providers and personal trainers, because lasting weight loss takes more than one tool. And because I’ve lived this struggle myself, you’ll never hear “just eat less and move more” in our office.
As parents, we spend so much energy taking care of everyone else that our own health slides to the bottom of the list. But one of the best things you can do for your kids is to be healthy enough to keep up with them now, and to be around for the milestones later. The benefits of weight loss go far beyond what you see in the mirror. Weight loss improves every organ system in your body. Even if your weight hasn’t hurt your health yet, you can prevent disease by taking action now.
We see patients at our offices in Westlake and Lyndhurst, with telehealth visits available. If you’ve lost faith in your ability to control your weight, I’d love to help you find it again. Call 216-377-7257 or check out our website https://karasweightloss.com/ to schedule a consultation.
Please join us at our upcoming open houses. No RSVP needed.
Wednesday, 10/7, 5:30-7:30 pm at the office of Dr. Rodney Green, 5035 Mayfield Rd., Suite 100, Lyndhurst.
Thursday, 10/15, 5-7 pm in the Premier Physicians building, 25200 Center Ridge Rd., Suite 1100, Westlake.