The BariNation Foundation Podcast

This week Natalie sat down with three pre-op patients and BariNation community members Ashley, Helina, and Lisa. They chatted about all things pre-op, including what they wish they knew before taking the leap into the bariatric journey. From not realizing how tedious the process could be, to learning that mindset work is a vital component to success. Ashley is a wife, mom of two (2yrs and 5yrs), a...

TRIGGER WARNING: Addiction and substance abuse is mentioned! This month on BariNation, we are focusing on pre-op love! Our pre-surgery selves play a vital role in our lives. They fought for surgery, they battled food addiction, and they shaped the life we are living today. April, Jason, and Natalie reflected on what they wish they knew prior to committing to surgery. From realizing they had a food...

Jason and Natalie sat down with Kylie Hansen, a bariatric patient, and Certified Personal Trainer, to talk about what resistance movement is, why it is so important for us as bariatric patients to focus on, and what that could look like at different stages post-op. Kylie also explained how resistance movement was key to her success as a bariatric patient, and how she turned that into her passion f...

Obesity is a chronic, lifelong disease with no known cure. Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for the disease and has the highest and longest treatment efficacy rates. But new medications have been developed that support the treatment of the disease in multiple ways. These new GLP-1 medications work in multiple ways in our bodies and are proving to be a powerful adjunct or secondary...

Jason and Natalie sat down with Chris Baker, a bariatric patient, philanthropist, father and husband. Chris is the founder and Executive Director of The Other Ones Foundation, a nonprofit on a mission to transition Austin's unhoused neighbors into an engaged community through shelter, opportunity, and support. He started The Other Ones Foundation in the summer of 2017 to bring his innovative ideas...

Bariatric surgery will not be the only thing that helps us find and maintain our happy, healthy weight. As patients, many of us believe that surgery will be the one thing, the only thing that will get us to a low and sustainable weight. Sure, we know there will be challenges and changes ahead, but surgery will be “the ticket” out of obesity and into our goal pants. We are here to tell you this is...

It’s one thing to have a goal; it is another thing to achieve it. April, Jason, and Natalie are on a mission to achieve some big thing this year, and they sat down to review how it has all been going. They shared what has been working well for them and what has stopped them in their tracks. Join the BariNation crew for an insightful conversation about growth, change, and decision making. Are you f...

Why do we make “bad” decisions? Why is it so hard sometimes to make decisions aligned to our goals? Why is it easier on some days and harder on others? Well…humans, on average, make 35,000 unique decisions every day, and at least 227 of them are food-related. That’s A LOT of thinking. No wonder we reach a decision-making breaking point and rely on our automatic choices! To reach our goals, we have...

Why do we give up on our goals? How can we be so motivated one day and the next day, completely abandon them? 92% of New Year's resolutions go unmet, and we wanted to know what we can do to keep our heads in the game. We sat down with Rodolfo to better understand the mindsets behind giving up on our goals and learn new insights and tools to help us stay committed, even on the hard days. Follow Rod...

Did you know that only 8% of people fulfill their “new year's resolutions”? Setting our goals and intentions in the new year fills us with hope and can add a little fuel to our motivation and willpower tanks. But these feelings can be quickly replaced by guilt, shame, and defeat. Why does this happen, and what can we do to keep working toward our goals when hope fades? Our friend Melanie Lindell,...

What a year 2022 has been! At times, it was the year that would never end. And in other times, the year went by in a flash. This year was filled with travel, tragedy, and triumphs, and through all those things, we connected, learned, and grew. In this episode, Jason, April, and Natalie reflect on the year that has been and share our biggest takeaways. We then look forward to 2023 and share who we...

**Trigger warning: Trauma is mentioned in this episode. We do not share specific traumas we have experienced, but we do discuss it in very broad and general terms. The holidays can be a real mixed bag of emotions. Some years, the holiday “spirit” is readily available, you are inspired to give back, you find the perfect gift for everyone on your list, and the season fills you with joy. In other yea...

Bariatric surgery only works on our physical body. Most of our actual work as patients must be done in our emotional world; it lives in the work we have to do with the people we love the most. But how do we foster these relationships as our relationship with ourselves changes rapidly before and after surgery? How do we invite them to join us on our journey if we don't even know where our journey i...

Have you had an experience where someone else was more concerned about your plate of food, what you were eating, or what you weighed than you were in the moment? Jason recently had an experience with his family over Thanksgiving that solidified his commitment to his bariatric lie. At the moment, he could have responded with anger and frustration. But he chose a different path, chose a different mi...

 Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that could go either way. Either we are excited to reconnect with family and friends, or we are worried about encounters with said family and friends. And how do bariatric patients navigate a holiday that is centered around eating? April, Jason, and Natalie each took some time to reflect on how they celebrated Thanksgiving in the past and how it has shif...

Community, connection, and celebration are the rewards we earn for doing the work of weight loss surgery. Obesity is a chronic and lifelong disease with no cure, but we can learn to manage it and maintain a weight that keeps metabolic disease at bay. The work, in many, is endless. But the rewards are priceless. We talked with some of our beloved BariNation Community Members about how community, co...

We believe, or are led to believe, that surgery would be the only thing we would need to find success after surgery. Our stomachs will be altered, and we will eat less. Poof, the weight will magically disappear, never to return. What happens when we discover that surgery is not enough? How do we deal with the shattering news that to lose and maintain a new low weight, we need many different kinds...

Birthdays are a big deal. They signify growth, change, and the passage of time. It is hard to believe that one year ago, on November 4th, East2West_WLS became BariNation. The shift was needed and necessary. We were ready to acknowledge a shift in our community and live out our values more meaningfully. We believe that when we unite as a nation of bariatric patients, we can create the support and c...

We all have some *feelings* about movement. For many of us, movement was (or is) a punishment for eating decisions that were not aligned with our goals. We were determined to work off that bad decision one grueling mile or rep after another and rarely saw any lasting results. To find long-term success before and after bariatric surgery, movement must become a part of our lives. So how do we shift...

There are three pillars of bariatric success after bariatric surgery. If surgery is the foundation of our journey, the pillars are what support everything that is built on that solid base and movement is one of those pillars. While a majority of our weight will be lost through dilligetnation attention to nutrition, movement ensures we live long, healthy lives. Before surgery, movement was a form o...

Jason and Natalie sat down with Tabitha Johnson to talk about her journey with movement. Tabitha explained that her relationship with movement didn’t begin until the last year. For her, the opportunity presented itself, and she took it by the reigns, made it happen, and now feels empowered to continue building her strength. They discussed her journey to Summer Shredding and how her movement has im...

Leanne said something so powerful in our conversation with her. She said she used to be a quitter, and that statement stopped us in our tracks. We can all identify with that statement. We have quit ourselves on diets, mindsets, or hopes and dreams. Life after bariatric surgery is about living it differently than ever before, and Leanne found a way to stop quitting on herself and her dreams. In thi...

Sometimes, stepping away from life is the only way to get through it. At times, life calls us to step away. Other times, we feel the call within ourselves to step away, to move back, to retreat from something big, bold, scary, or sad. But what happens when we come back? What do we do when we have to come back, or we are called back? How do we engage with our lives again when we feel tectonic shift...

At any given moment, we can identify handfuls of missteps, mistakes, and failures that we feel we have made from the moment we woke up. And teasing out any win’s or succusses seems like an impossible task. If we allow a moment for our rational thoughts to catch up to our irrational thoughts, we would know this is simply not true. Yet many of us are running this race every day, and finding ourselve...

Podcasts have the power to change lives. They can be a powerful tool we can all use to find a missing piece along our journey, make connections that have elluded us, and bring people together who are on similar paths. They can be the nudge that finally pushes us into action. April and Jason started the East2WestWLS because they were looking for that support, that connection, that community and cou...