It’s not an easy fix. There…I said it. I can’t count the number of times someone has talked about bariatric surgery and referred to it as the easy way to lose weight. I’ve heard it from skinny people, overweight people, people who lost weight “the hard way”, and even people who’ve had the surgery. And I know a lot of people who have struggled to lose weight through diet and exercise, only to fail over and over again, so they see bariatric surgery as their last resort to losing weight, only to see it fail, too.
Did I mention it’s not an easy fix? Because it’s not. There are many different options for bariatric surgery these days, but even from the original days of the gastric bypass down to the now fashionable gastric sleeve, the choice to have this elective surgery is a hard one. Most surgeons and weight loss clinics require patients to go through intense screening before surgery. Nutrition counseling, psychological evaluations, and diagnostic sleep studies are just a few of the pre-op requirements. One friend had to produce records proving she had been attending regular Jazzercise classes for a certain length of time before her surgery. Patients must also start the process of altering their diets to shrink their stomachs and to prep for the kinds of foods they will be limited to once they’ve had the surgery.
One of the reasons I chose not to have bariatric surgery is that I just don’t think I can give up so many foods I love. For instance, bariatric patients can’t have carbonated beverages, like sodas, beer, or champagne. I’ve known people with older surgeries (like gastric bypass) who could not have bread or peanut butter. I can’t imagine never having another peanut butter sandwich for the rest of my life, much less giving up my beloved Coca-Cola…it was all I could do to make myself switch to Coke Zero when I found out I was diabetic. In addition to the foods bariatric patients must give up, there are many things they can’t eat anymore, like spicy food, greasy food, and often beef…all things I love.
Bariatric patients have to eat very tiny meals, but even when they eat all the right things in the right amounts, sometimes they still get sick. Some patients are sick more often than they are not. The surgery and the ensuing dietary changes often cause gastric distress, dumping syndrome, gallbladder attacks, pancreatitis, intolerance of foods they used to love, and even changes in the patient’s blood sugar levels. To make it worse, some well-intentioned patients go right back to their old eating habits, eating all the greasy fried food, carbs, and bubbly soft drinks that made them overweight in the first place simply because they haven’t addressed the real issues of their eating disorder.
In order for a bariatric patient to realize success after their surgery, they absolutely must change the way they think about and react to food. Have you ever heard the saying, “What got you here won’t get you there?” It’s absolutely true. You cannot fix a problem with food by continuing to eat the same things you ate before. A successful bariatric patient (or any weight loss practitioner, really) must come to terms with the mental muddle that caused them to gain weight in the first place, and they must change those patterns permanently. And that is no easy feat. If it was, we would all be a healthy weight.
I’ll admit that I am no expert on weight loss (see that last sentence in the previous paragraph), but I’ve seen enough people get on and off the bariatric merry-go-round to catch on to what many of them do right (and wrong), so I’d like to pass on my best tips for weight loss, and please don’t judge me by the fact that I have a hard time keeping to them myself.
Small portions rule. A bariatric patient often has a stomach about the size of your fist, so if you are eating more than that, you are probably stretching out, and thus undoing all the hard work your surgeon did to help you lose weight. Stop it. Go back to the small portions you started with and don’t go back to your old eating habits.
Nix the greasy fried food, high carbs, and empty calories. It’s really hard on your digestive system, and this is the junk that made you gain weight in the first place. Stick to nice, healthy proteins and veggies. If you can’t remember what healthy meals look like, go back to your nutrition counselor and get a list or examples.
Say no to soft drinks, beer, and anything bubbly. This stuff may taste good, but it often has empty calories, and the carbonation can actually expand your stomach that you just paid that doctor to reduce. If you absolutely have to have the taste of a Coke, let it go flat and be sure to choose a zero-calorie version.
Stop eating out. Yes, you read that right. Stop. Eating. Out. Restaurant food is over-portioned, high-calorie, high fat, high carb and just wrong, wrong, wrong for anyone trying to lose weight. Yes, I see that mile-high pile of chicken and waffles. Just no.
Get some accountability. Find a friend who is trying to lose weight, too, and then hold each other’s feet to the fire. Seriously. When you have an accountability partner who has the same goals as you, it will facilitate making the right choices. You can celebrate your wins (even the little ones) and you can talk each other down from the ledge. Just be sure not to choose an accountability partner who will enable your bad choices. Let them know you expect them to tell you “no” and to remind you why you want to make the right choice.
Keep a food journal. Document everything you eat and drink. But don’t stop there. While you’re at it, stop a moment and think about why you ate what you ate. Was it a craving? If so, what prompted it? Was it an impulse? What was the trigger? Was it because you had too many choices, or even too few? Really account for what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, and why you eat. You might be surprised to find some patterns in there, and a pattern is an opportunity to change.
Remember why you chose to have that surgery and to lose weight in the first place. It was a hard choice and the path here has not been easy. Remember what you dreamed of when you started this journey – a healthy mind in a healthy body. So, every time you need to make a choice about food, ask yourself, “Is this in alignment with the life I want to live? Does this get me closer to or farther away from my goal?”
I hope that those of you who have elected to have bariatric surgery will find some help in these tips, and if you are considering bariatric surgery, that you will talk with your doctor about the many facets of weight loss surgery. It’s not just a decision to make a permanent physical alteration to your body…it is a life-long decision to live, eat, and think differently about food. It won’t be easy, but it does work…if you do the work.
Have you had bariatric surgery, or have you contemplated it? If you’ve had it, has it worked for you, or did you have early success and then struggled to continue? I’d like to hear about it. You can comment here, or join us over on the MMC Chat group.
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