Weight Loss Winformation

The holidays add extra layers of stress for most of us. Many bariatric patients struggle to stay on track with healthy habits, especially if they’re out of the early post-surgery “honeymoon” stage. Food triggers are everywhere throughout the year! The sights and smells of holiday foods, along with emotional triggers unearthed during the holiday season, make food even more appealing and seemingly i...

Maintaining weight loss after bariatric surgery can be challenging. Doing so during the holiday season adds another whole level of difficulty when it comes to keeping your weight stable. What if you could get through this holiday season and not gain any weight… and perhaps actually lose some weight? How proud would you feel? What an amazing way to begin the new year, already on the right track! In...

Expressing thankfulness, or gratitude, is known to have positive effects on our mood and attitude. The positive benefits of acknowledging and expressing gratitude have been shown to last for weeks and months! And will be a motivator to keep you moving in the direction of living a healthy lifestyle at a healthy weight. Most of us are reminded from time to time to focus on what’s good and right in o...

We all know what the areas of strength are in our lives… and we also know the areas in which we could improve. What areas of your life do you identify as being really good at? Are you a good employee? A great spouse? A terrific parent? If so, it’s a given that your behaviors… your habits, in those areas of your life, reflect how you feel about yourself in those arenas. Good employees show up for w...

Everyone who has bariatric surgery plans to have long-term success, usually described in terms of maintaining their weight loss over time. As you know, that is not always the case. Regain is a struggle for a lot of people after the “honeymoon period” is over. In the book Atomic Habits, the author, James Clear talks about the emphasis most people place on goals. He wisely points out that regardless...

We outlined how to develop the first two parts of your Personal Protection Plan for staying on course with your healthy lifestyle goals during the last BariAftercare podcast. In today’s episode, I’ll talk you through Parts 3 and 4 so you can complete your plan. It’s only helpful, however, if you actually create it, place it somewhere accessible to you (like on your phone) and then use it! The tool...

The holiday food-fest season kicks off with Halloween this month and seems to continue straight through the new year. Be prepared this year to stay on track with your goals to maintain a healthy weight for your body after bariatric surgery. Work through the four part Personal Protection Plan I have created for you so that you can pat yourself on the back when New Year’s Eve rolls around and proudl...

In the iconic book, titled The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, the author Don Miguel Ruiz shares ancient wisdom related to the source of our self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. The Four Agreements are: 1) Be impeccable with your word, 2) Don’t take anything personally, 3) Don’t make assumptions, and 4) Always do your best. In today’s podc...

Exercise physiologist Julia Karlstad has written two books about exercise specifically for bariatric patients! The titles of her books are Rx Fitness for Weight Loss and Bariatric Fitness for Your New Life. In her first of her monthly videos for BariAftercare, Julia talks about how to exercise to burn more fat after you have bariatric surgery. Julia refers to exercise as the “fountain of youth” an...

Have you ever thought that an obsession with food may have saved your sanity to some degree? I know that doesn’t sound logical, but for those who have been there… they get it! Believe it or not, obsessing about food, calories, weight, grams, recipes, and food shows may be a way YOU protect yourself! Struggling with the frustration of food obsession may be less painful than addressing emotions rela...

When people opt to have bariatric surgery, they are asked several times in the process of preparing for surgery what their “goal weight” is. I find people’s responses very interesting. Some people say they are not overly interested in a particular number, stating instead they are more interested in being off medications, being able to travel, and living longer. Others appear to be very attached to...

Did you know that there are some critical questions you can ask yourself that can help you to make better decisions in your life – about everything, actually. But the ones you are likely super interested in are decisions related to food, eating, exercise!  Better decisions do lead to fewer regrets!  You opted to have bariatric surgery in order to live in better health. Therefore, it would be a gre...

Any time we can work smarter and not harder is a win in my book. It’s interesting to really think about the many ways we complicate our own lives, but that’s a story for another day. Today, I want to share some ways we can simplify incorporating the many behavior changes required after surgery into your life as a bariatric patient. Keep in mind, that simple does not mean easy! While most of the be...

Meet Taylor Rizzo! Taylor is a registered dietician who works exclusively with bariatric patients, both before and after their surgical procedures. And her patients love her! Which is the reason I have asked Taylor to be a regular presence on BariAftercare! On this, her first episode for BariAftercare, Taylor answers a number of questions frequently asked by patients: What is eating frequency? How...

Many people who have bariatric surgery carry a fear of failure into the procedure with them. This fear of failure may be readily acknowledged or could be a subconscious thought lingering from past experiences with weight regain.  Here’s a truth if ever there was a truth: human beings are not failures so if you’ve ever said, “I’m such a failure,” please reconsider! A human being may have setbacks o...

When I ask people who have regained weight what they think led to their regain, the number one response I get is, “Stress!” I always tell them that eating leads to weight regain. But is there a physiological connection between the biological effects of stress and increased food consumption? Or can stress simply be tossed into the general category of emotional eating? In this episode of BariAfterca...

You know from past experiences of losing weight, that no one else could do the work it took to get those pounds off. YOU were the one who drank two protein shakes every day, who got up and went to the gym at the crack of dawn, who ate nothing but cabbage soup for a week, or who restricted themselves from even a single gram of a simple carb. And the minute you stopped the behavior that led to the w...

How do you know if you’re behaving like a “healthy emotional adult?” We all probably think we behave like we’re mature adults and in many cases, we do! However, if we feel an internal sense of shame or feel we have low self-esteem, it’s likely that knowingly or unknowingly, we engage in defensive, or emotionally protective ways in our interactions with others. In the last few podcasts, we discusse...

I often talk about communication as being the easiest, most difficult thing we do. Most of us talk a lot throughout the day. Yet so many of us failed to learn how to communicate in healthy ways. Why? Because not many of our parents/caretakers knew how to communicate using healthy communication skills. Too often, we have learned to use passive communication or aggressive techniques or a passive-agg...

For the past several weeks we’ve been talking about difficult things that happen to kids that damage their sense of self-worth. If the childhood issues are significant or take place over a significant amount of time, the results affect the person’s self-esteem into their adult lives. In order to help heal from low self-esteem (regardless of where it originated), which we have been talking about in...

Please listen with an open heart and an open mind to Part 2 of the research presented by a group of weight loss doctors who conducted research over many years with thousands of people who suffer from obesity.  The research clearly indicates that Physicians and weight loss programs, which focus primarily on changing a person’s diet and are missing the fact that scores of people with obesity have hi...

Obesity is a bio-psycho-social disease. This means that a person who has obesity suffers physically, emotionally and socially. It also means obesity is a result of biological, psychological and social factors. This is a special, two-part episode of the podcast because it contains critical information provided by a group of weight loss physicians who studied the backgrounds of thousands of patients...

Dana Rosser and her husband, Dr. Butch Rosser talk about their journey through Dr. Butch’s decision to have bariatric surgery. Dana shares her lack of knowledge and her fears about the surgery. She also shares her emotions related to his obesity and his decision to have bariatric surgery. Dr. Butch discusses his reasons for choosing the procedure he opted for. He explains the benefits of both the...

I like the analogy used by author John Friel that people are born into the world like a full cup. We’re born full of self-love, love for others, positive self-worth, and a good dose of healthy self-esteem. Over time, as life happens, some of that great self-acceptance gets dumped out. How? And by whom? Well… it gets dumped out in lots of way and by lots of different people. Being teased or bullied...

We’ve talked about habits in recent podcasts, how to develop healthy habits and extinguish unhealthy habits. Being able to lose weight and maintain that weight loss requires both … developing good habits and ditching those habits that do not help you. Habits, are, in fact, one of the reasons people regain weight. I’m often told, “I regained weight because I went back to the old habits.” That’s a f...