The BariNation Foundation Podcast

Bariatric surgery is a life-altering decision. The fear that surrounds this procedure is real, despite the life-saving effects and impacts it can make on your life. Undergoing any type of weight loss procedure comes with risks and costs. It is important to weigh these risks with the potential rewards that come with living on the lighter side of life. We sat down with Dr. Joe Cribbins, the Director...

Well...we made it through September. BARLEY. What we learned this month was a little shocking, in all good ways. By focusing on getting back to our bariatric basics, we learned that: Sometimes you have to slow down to go faster. Even with all of the support in the world, you will still find ways to talk yourself out of doing things to reach your goals. That by hyper-focusing on a few things, we ca...

We are SO PROUD of Natalie! She has reached her ONE YEAR milestone of post-op life and sat down with us to reflect on what this past year has meat to her. This is actually her *third* one-year milestone because she has undergone three, separate bariatric surgeries. Her resilience, grit, and tenacity has allowed to to fine success, and redefine what that means to her. We also had a pretty profound...

We made the decision to have bariatric surgery for many reasons. Many of us are seeking metabolic wellness...we have just never called it that! Metabolic wellness can be defined as having ideal levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference, without using medications. These factors directly relate to a person’s risk for hea...

Mindset is the last thing we think of when we think of weight loss but it is actually the most crucial of all of the pillars of bariatric success. When our motivation and willpower disappear, our mindset is what will actually push us through to make those lasting changes necessary to live at our happy, healthy weight.  In this episode, Jason, April, and Natalie sat down to talk about mindset....

Our body is designed to move. We also understand that you might not always feel like moving! We define “movement” as “intentional movement that is beyond your everyday normal.” We love this definition because it meets you where you are at NOW, not where you were or where you are going. In this episode, April and Jason sat down with Michaela @losingtoblooming to deep dive into movement. We wanted t...

Have you fallen off your bariatric wagon? Has your wagon crashed into a ravine somewhere and do you need some help getting back on track? Don't worry...ours has too. WE GOT YOU!   In this episode, April, Jason, and Natalie share their recent bariatric struggles, setbacks, and stumbles and talk about how they will be getting back on track in September. They set goals and talk through the goal-...

We have all experienced food shame and guilt after eating something we deemed "bad" or "unhealthy'. This shame and guilt are what might have kept us in a cycle of unrelenting darkness and struggle because we thought there was something wrong with us...something is so broken it could never be fixed. We are here to tell you that you can break this cycle and find your pathway out of food shame and gu...

Life after bariatric surgery can be filled with food anxiety, even though we were hoping to move away from it after our procedure. Making food choices that align with our health goals means that we are -at times- thinking more about food after surgery than we ever have before. And finding creative, interesting, and delicious alternatives to our favorite foods can feel like more work than what it i...

We sat down with our friend Katie @katie.vsg to see how life has changed 6-month post-op VSG surgery! We wanted to know what has stayed the same, what has changed, what has gotten easier, and what has been harder than expected! Katie has made amazing progress and is honest about her struggles, stalls, let downs, disappointments. But Katie is a FIGHTER and determined to craft the life of her dreams...

We have a 50% chance of regaining our weight two years after our bariatric procedure. These two critical years will make or break our long-term success and once we reach this milestone and have maintained our new low weight, we should take a moment to CELEBRATE! April recently reached this milestone and we took some time to reflect on what has changed and what has stayed the same. The trio had the...

Are you considering plastic surgery after your bariatric procedure? We sat down with two experts in the plastic surgery field Dr. Gavin Dry, MD and his wife, Melissa Dry, Surgical RN, and answer all of your plastic surgery questions! Many of us undergo plastic surgery after our weight loss to tackle our extra skin but there are quite a few factors that go into making the decision to have a plastic...

Plastic surgery is something many people in the bariatric community consider after losing a significant amount of weight. But knowing where to even START can be daunting. We sat down with one of our favorite humans, Dez @wokeuplikedez , to learn about her plastic surgery experience. She is not afraid to talk about everything and we got to say, we got into EVERYTHING!  In this episode, you wil...

Spoiler Alert- we think this is one of the BEST patient-to-patient conversations we have had to date on the podcast. ⁠ Don't get us wrong...we have had some AMAZING conversations with fellow bariatric friends, but this one was so far-reaching, so targeted to our emotional and physical changes, and really dove into the hard things that we don't want to talk about or admit- that our friends, family,...

What do you think of your scars? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Do you show them off or do you hide them? Our scars are something we rarely talk about, yet they are a visual representation of our history. They help tell the story of us. Most humans have a scar by two years old and as we age, we keep accumulating scars as our history progresses. After bariatric surgery, many of us are left wit...

Our size and shape are not the only things that #transforms after #wls...our #skin does too!  We recently sat down with the amazing women of @vsgtea, Sammi @therealslimsammii, and Bre @thebresg to talk about the transformation of their skin and #skincaretoutine have gone through #wlspostop! We anticipate loose and saggy skin after surgery, but what about wrinkles, dimples, and bumps? It all h...

We know that many of us struggle with loving our skin before bariatric surgery. So how do we get to the point after surgery where we can accept, acknowledge, and even love our skin? We sat down with Charity @wanderlust.wls to better understand her recipe for loving her skin at every stage of her journey! And let us tell you...she has been through it ALL. She has overcome life-threatening surgical...

Caring for our skin might have been something we *neglected* before bariatric surgery. Maybe we didn't enjoy interacting with our bodies, maybe it was never a priority, maybe we couldn't *touch* parts of our body because we simply could not reach it. Whatever the reason, skincare is a VERY important part of our overall health, and neglecting our skin can lead to lasting negative impacts. In this e...

What started out as a conversation about skin turned into so much more. Loving our skin means that we are using our three pillars of success before and after bariatric surgery to truly love ourselves. Our skin is the largest organ in our bodies, yet it is something that most of us have neglected. We people say "skincare" we instantly think of our face and how we care for the skin on our face. I th...

We are diving right into this month's support topic- we recently sat down as an East2West_WLS Crew to talk about our current skin situation! We wanted to reconnect with each other and find out where everyone is at with this skin relationship and turns out, we are all kind of in the same boat. We all acknowledge that our skincare has taken a back seat and we are ready to move it up to the shotgun p...

A vice is something we turn to when we are feeling BLASTED (Bored, Lonely, Anxious or Angry, Hungry, Sar or Stressed, Tired, Excited, Depressed) and we have run "out of gas". We can turn to our vice when we want to escape these feelings and trade them in for something exciting, rewarding, pleasurable, and when we need to just "numb out". And after bariatric surgery, we actually NEED to buy new clo...

Trigger Warning: Alcoholism and Death Bariatric patients face an increased risk of many health issues after surgery. But Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is one of the least discussed issues, even though it increases our chances of major complications and even death. Study after study has shown an increased risk of AUD, leading to severe complications and death three years post-op. The medical community...

Our brains are wired to keep us safe when we sense danger. If we are experiencing physical or emotional pain, our brains work every possible scenario until it finds the most effective and efficient way out of the pain. What our brains do not understand is that sometimes those pathways out of pain actually create more lasting and long-term pain because they negatively impact our overall quality of...

If you follow Phil, the founder, and creator of Dive Bar Nutrition on Instagram- you might have the perception that he is a super crazy, off-the-wall guy who loves making freaking delicious protein bars. But in the first 5 minutes of our conversation with him, we realized he is so much more than his Dive Bar persona. He is a highly intelligent, educated *professor* who has overcome it ALL to creat...

Curious what life will be like after bariatric surgery? Jason and April recently sat down with their friend Katie @katie.vsg to hear how her life has changed after her VSG procedure! Katie is so open and honest about her experience, and this conversation is a continuation of her raw accounting of how life has changed after her procedure. One of the biggest "ah-ha" moments so far has been the impac...