You’ve Decided to Have Bariatric Surgery: Here Are Four Steps to a Great Start
You’ve decided bariatric surgery is right for you. You may have already booked a few consults with local bariatric surgeons and are ready to get the ball rolling. That’s great! You’re on the path to a healthier future.
Waiting for your surgery date and making sure you’re checking off the boxes your insurance requires can take a while. Especially if they require a six-month pre-surgery waiting period and lots of medical testing. In the meantime, you may be wondering what to do.
We get a lot of questions from pre-op patients about what they can do now to give themselves a head start on their weight loss and the lifestyle changes of bariatric surgery. We’ve put together four steps you can take while you’re pre-op to jumpstart your new bariatric lifestyle.
1. Get Clear on Your Goals
We’ve all heard the statistic that we’re 42% more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down. Writing our goals helps us get really clear on what we want to achieve and what those goals look like.
While researching and finding a surgeon, you may have dreamt about what life would be like after WLS, but let’s take it a step further now. Take some time during your pre-op journey to get really clear about what you want to accomplish. For example, you may say to yourself, “I want to be healthy.” Now, think about what that looks like and write it out in detail.
For Kellie, it looked like being able to move without pain and leaving her home. She no longer wanted to be bedridden with being overweight and managing her autoimmune diseases.
For Mel, “wanting to be healthy” looked like her feeling comfortable in her own skin. She also wanted to educate herself and her young family on healthier lifestyle habits, something she had never learned as a child.
If you get stuck on goals, switch to your “Why.”
Why have you decided to have bariatric surgery?
What was your turning point to decide weight loss surgery is the right path?
Take some time to come up with three to five goals (or “whys”) for your bariatric journey, and really think about what those goals look like for you. Start a journal, make a vision board, or write your future self a letter to open on your one-year surgiversary.
If you’re comfortable, share your goals on social media and tag us @oursleevedlifepodcast so we can cheer you on!
2. Adjust Your Lifestyle
Bariatric surgery is a big decision and one you should only consider when you’re ready to make big changes to your current lifestyle. This is a lifelong journey that requires a lot of hard work. You’re breaking the patterns and cycles you’ve worked with your whole life.
One of the best steps you can take now is to start changing your mindset around food.
Start thinking of food as fuel for your body, not a way to numb feelings.
When you make meal choices, be mindful of what you eat, what’s in it, and how much you eat.
Look into food-tracking apps like LoseIt!, Baritastic, or My Fitness Pal to track your food and movement.
Food can still taste good and fuel you. Find foods and meals that are high in protein and low in calories. Learn to read food nutrition labels and make choices that serve your goals. We’ve found some great recipes in bariatric meal prep cookbooks that can work for pre-op as well. We have a great collection of cookbooks in our Amazon store.
Your surgeon may also tell you to get your body moving. If you’ve never been one to exercise, you can start slow. Start with walking short distances and build up to a walk around your neighborhood.
Intentional movement is a mindset shift. Start thinking of exercise as a benefit or goal rather than a punishment for eating too much or something that's not on your plan. We have monthly challenges to keep our bodies moving. If you would like to join us monthly, you can download the monthly challenges from OSLP digital downloads.
3. Start Therapy
Weight loss surgery is a great tool to help lose excess weight. We also need to prepare ourselves for the mental struggles that’ll come with this journey. Some of us lose our ways of coping when we can no longer eat ourselves into numbness. We developed coping strategies as kids when dealing with childhood traumas or fears. Our methods of coping that once served and comforted us no longer do.
We need to evaluate our coping methods and find new ways to deal with stress and triggers that make us want to eat (or other ways to cope). We have built up years and years of these habits. It'll take time to heal and find new, healthier ways to find peace and self-regulate. This process is not easy and will take time. Going through this process with a professional is the best way to start.
Starting therapy now, before surgery, will better prepare you for any challenges that come up post-op. One of the biggest regrets we have, aside from not having our surgeries sooner, is not starting therapy immediately.
4. Find Support
Weight loss surgery will be a massive shift physically, and many are surprised by the mental hurdles they have after surgery. This is why your surgeon may ask what type of support system you have. Family and friends are great resources to help with the day-to-day needs after surgery. The challenge comes when they want to help, but they don’t understand the struggles of bariatric surgery unless they’ve been there themselves. It can be a lonely road if you don’t have someone that fully understands what you’re going through.
When we first started the podcast, we realized our listeners needed more than information and hearing our stories. They needed positive support from other bariatric patients in all stages of their journies. This is the #1 reason we started The Winners Bench™, our very own peer support group.
Over the last two years, it’s become more than just a group of people sharing recipes and post-op tips. It’s become a close group of people (women and men) that share their wins and their struggles, personal or bariatric-related. It’s truly grounding to be a part of such a phenomenal group of people. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to be a part of so many peoples’ bariatric journeys.
If you have challenges with the types of food to eat, where to get your low-calorie/high-protein foods, or how much to eat, there are nutritionists and dietitians that can support you. We work closely with Jamie, @thesleeveddietitian, and her amazing community, The T.R.I.B.E. Membership. As a registered dietitian, she offers valuable nutritional education and personal insight to the community. The T.R.I.B.E. Membership also offers almost daily peer support group calls on Zoom.
We love being able to hop on a group call if we’re feeling the need for some extra support. If you decide to join her group, make sure to tell her we sent you and use the code OSLP.
Bringing It All Together
This all may be very overwhelming in the beginning. Take small steps. Make small changes daily or weekly and build on your new habits. Starting these lifestyle changes during pre-op will help you build up to your surgery date. You may even find that you have lost some weight in the process. Once you have these habits in place and add the weight loss tool, surgery will simply accelerate your weight loss and healthy lifestyle goals.
If you haven’t already, be sure to join our email list and receive our awesome OSLP Guide to Bariatric Surgery with lots of pre-op and post-op information. It also has a few checklists to help keep you on track. Once you sign up, you’ll see us in your inbox right away!