Follow-Up
Bariatric surgery is a tool that helps you live a lighter lifestyle for life. It can permanently limit your ability to overeat and regain all the weight you have lost. It is important, however, to remember that to get maximum benefit from your tool, to achieve your goal weight and maintain it, you must properly use that tool.
Listed below are habits that can help you live light for a lifetime:
Eating Habits
- Restrict your portions to the size recommended.
- Stop eating as soon as you feel full or when you've finished your recommended portion.
- Eat slowly, taking 20 to 45 minutes to consume a meal.
- Take small bites of food and chew thoroughly.
- Sip liquids between meals, but not while eating.
Nutrition
- Protect your health by eating a balanced diet.
- Make sure you're getting the recommended amount of protein, calories, and vitamins.
- Eat like "normal" people by eating to live rather than living to eat.
- If you lapse into sabotaging behavior, stop and get back on track immediately.
Exercise
- Engage in 30-60 minutes of exercise 3-5 times a week.
- Include strength training 2-3 times per week
- Do some type of stretching after exercise and/or as a separate activity such as yoga.
- Be creative and look for ways to make exercise fun.
- Participate in activities you enjoy, such as hiking or dancing.
Attitude
- Focus on your strengths by paying attention to what is good about you.
- Set your own goals and be responsible for meeting them.
- Spend your time and energy doing things that enhance your self-esteem, self-confidence, and pleasure in living.
- Weed out or change activities and interests that are negative or sabotaging.
Relationships
- Surround yourself with people who care about you and support you.
- Seek to improve troubled relationships that are important to you.
- Be your own best friend by treating yourself with love, care, and respect.
- Spend time taking care of yourself and promoting your lighter lifestyle.
Stress Management
- Practice problem solving in order to protect your emotional and physical well-being.
- Learn to keep your head when your environment feels out of control.
- Learn to balance the needs of work, family, and friends with your own needs.
- Weed out or change activities and interests that are negative or sabotaging.
