The BariNation Foundation Podcast

Today's conversation is about TWO things that we think we have to avoid like the plague after WLS- carbs and fat! We want to know some things…like…and we got all the answers! Mike even helped JASON work through some of his current nutritional wondering and provided us all with some HOPE when it comes to our goals and tracking! Episode Topics: — What are carbs and fats? Are they essential to your h...

Hitting our protein goals after surgery is important for so many reasons, but we bet your surgeon never told you *why* it is so important. Turns out, protein is a critical nutrient that allows cells to be built and hormone signals to be sent! It also helps your body not eat away at your muscles as you are losing weight…who knew! We sat down with one of our amazing BariNation Experts Jeannie Boyer,...

Everywhere you turn in the bariatric community, we hear MACRO this and MACRO that…but what the heck does MACRO even mean? This month, our support will be deep-diving into all things macros and we sat down with one of our favorite bariatric deititans to get the low down on all things macros. In this episode, Sam Tambeaux tells us: What macros are and what role they play in our bodies Why we need ma...

Advocacy means public support for something or someone you believe in. Self-advocacy means that public display of support means you are the one standing up for yourself. But this requires some practice as many of us have never advocated for ourselves before. We lived our lives in the shadows, attempting to not draw any more attention to ourselves than what our weight already did. Self-advocacy is...

The Growing Pains of Self-Love This is one of the most personal episodes April has ever recorded. We know that learning how to love ourselves is difficult and Mabel gave us a master class in WHY it can be such a painful process. She broke April like a farm-fresh egg getting scrambled in a hot skillet. Mabel was able to identify the reason April struggles to open herself to self-love and helped us...

We were so excited to sit down with the one and only Dr. Dovec to talk about all things bariatric self-love! We wanted to know Dr. Dovec’s definition of self-love and how she practices it in her own life because this woman is BUSY! She is the Medical Director of AdventHealth’s Weight Loss and Bariatric Surgical Centers in Central Florida, she performs hundreds of bariatric surgeries every year, an...

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Drug, and Alcohol Use Many bariatric patients can trace their obesity to a trauma that was experienced in their past. Our brains are wired to keep us safe, out of harm, and in a place of comfort. When we experience any kind of event that our brains perceive as traumatic, it will immediately triage and do find the quickest path away from that trauma. For many of us, food...

Knowing the definition of self-love is the first step in actually loving ourselves. But how do we actually get there? How do we get to a place of love and acceptance for ourselves? We sat down with Maddie Spahr, one of our most amazing bariatric friends and creators, and Rodolfo Alvarez, a phenomenal Wellness Coach, to help us understand how we go from having no self-love to a place of acceptance,...

Is loving ourselves selfish or self-centered? Do you think you have ever loved yourself or loved all of yourself? Self-love can be defined as having regard for our own well-being and health, but have we ever actually practiced that definition? April, Jason, and Natalie sat down to dive into self-love. They wanted to know what it was, how (or if) we practice it in our own lives, and talk about ways...

Have you ever wondered why self-care is something that seems so foreign to you? Something that always is on your to-do list but never gets checked off? It might be because you grew up in a culture or family where self-care was not practiced or acknowledged. And that could be creating some friction between you and your self-care. We sat down with Kelsie Danielle, an amazing bariatric patient who ha...

If you think dental care is something you can put off or neglect, we are here to tell you that is a bad idea…ESPECIALLY after having bariatric surgery! Taking care of our physical health and our teeth are two of the most impactful things we can do as a form of self-care. We recently sat down with Day Sager- a dental assistant who has had years of experience working in the field. Our mouths can act...

There is this idea, thought, or hope, that once we have bariatric surgery, all of our healthcare issues will magically disappear. For many of us, we *do* see certain medical conditions lesson or even completely go away. April’s sleep apnea dissipated two weeks after her VSG procedure and Jason has been able to cut back on many of his medications. In fact, the reversal of medical conditions is one...

Like many conversations we have, we think we will talk about one thing, but we end up talking about something completely different. Self-care can be defined as “The practice of taking action to preserve and improve one’s health.” We love this definition of self-care because it calls us to do several things; practice calls us to actually do self-care, action requires that we actually do those thing...

Who else thought 2021 would go differently than it did? This conversation started out one way, and ended in a very different way…much like this year! Join April, Jason, and Natalie for a discussion on the year that was, and the year that is to be! We were amazed at how much *good* we found in 2021 when we really dove into the year. We all accomplished some amazing things, despite it all! Join us a...

How can we make the holidays merry and *bari* friendly? In this episode, Michaela Miller @losingtoblooming joins us recently to talk about some of her favorite strategies for navigating the holiday season and not abandoning her bariatric goals. It really all comes down to mindset ; recognizing how the "all or nothing" mindset does not serve us- especially in high-stress times, the power and impact...

The holidays can invoke some heavy emotions and feelings. On top of the sense of loss and grief, we might be feeling after our bariatric surgery, we might also be feeling the missing presence of loved ones. And when you add on the additional layer of the pandemic and just life in general, this season can become overwhelming. And when things get overwhelming, we tend to fall back on old habits, act...

Have you ever found that when one thing goes wrong, you want to discount the WHOLE DAY? Sometimes, we can use that one event to derail our week, month, or even our year. If we want to live differently after bariatric surgery, we need to respond differently when things do not go to plan. Suzanne Razaq- bariatric coach and educator- joins us in this episode to teach us how we can reframe our mindset...

Finding moments of joy can be challenging any time of year, but during the holidays, it can be a monumental challenge. Even though we are in the season of joyful celebration, grief, loss, and sadness can make finding moments of joy difficult. In this episode, April, Jason, and Natalie discuss the meaning of joy; what it is, what it can look like, how we can find it in our daily lives, and how we c...

Being faithful to a vitamin regimen after WLS is key to our long-term success. Not only will it help us reach our weight goals, but it will ensure we remain metabolically well. So many people in our community find themselves hospitalized or under a doctors care for nutritional and mineral deficiencies and we don’t want that to happen to anyone. We sat down with Ben and Stephen, the founders of Par...

Traveling might not have been something we did a lot of before bariatric surgery. Our weight might have made getting from one destination to another difficult and once we were to our destination, our size might have prevented us from fully enjoying our adventure. But with the Bariatric Retreat one day away, we wanted to take a moment and reflect on what travel has looked like in our lives and offe...

Today, East2West_WLS becomes BariNation! We have come a long way from our humble podcast beginnings. We realized we had the power and capacity to create something meaningful and valuable for our bariatric community and today, we are excited to share with you what we have spent the last year working on! None of our current supports are going away, we are just adding a new and dynamic support option...

In November, we will be focusing on discussing things that support our bariatric life. Things changed significantly before and after bariatric surgery. While many things remain the same, almost nothing remains the same. In this episode, April, Jason, and Natalie talk about how their lives have shifted after their procedures and what #barilife looks like for them. Episode Topics: What “bari life” m...

Regain is something every *human* will experience. Our weight is designed to fluctuate over our lifetimes, regardless of our bariatric status. Regain is not a bad or scary thing, it is simply data we can observe and collect along the way. Nothing scary there! We also know the stress that weight regain can play in our lives because we are on this bariatric rollercoaster with you and have experience...

There is the plan…and then there is what happens. This episode is a *perfect* example of that because we started out talking about partying before and after WLS and we ended up making some DEEP connections about how we are using partying after WLS and what it is helping teach us. None of us thought we would go THIS DEEP but we are so thankful for the safe place to have meaningful conversations lik...

We had the *amazing* opportunity to sit down with Lora Grabow, bariatric therapist and Jana Wolff, Registered Dietitian and founder of BariBox to learn about CRAVINGS. This unique opportunity allowed us to learn about this hot topic from two different and important perspectives- from a mindset and metabolic wellness lens. This one-two punch will offer fresh insights into cravings and how we can le...