What is the quickest way to regain the weight you have lost?

There could be many answers here. It could be from allowing sugar back into your life. It could be from over-eating. It could be from not having sufficient activity in your life. What about eating too many fried foods again? Sodas anybody?

 

My personal response to this question is Grazing.

 

Yup, that is what I find that many of my clients who have experienced regain are doing and this is exactly why they are regaining the weight.

 

So, how do you protect yourself from the dreaded graze? It’s easy.

Eat. Stop. Eat.

 

Why don’t a lot of you use your bariatric pouch as it was meant to be used? I know you are all afraid of “stretching the pouch”, but this is how it was supposed to work…

 

You see,,, You are hungry. You eat until full. You stop eating. End of story.

 

What are many people doing? They don’t like that “full feeling”, so they never eat until their pouch is full. That signal of satiety is never reached. They walk around feeling peckish all the time. This leads to grazing. When we graze, the pouch is never full. We can graze all day long and never get to the point where we are satisfied. Now, if we add the wrong types of foods to this scenario, it can be a disaster for regain.

 

Imagine having a few sips of a protein shake for breakfast. Now, are you satisfied? Of course not. You arrive at the office and Betty has brought donuts for everybody. You have plenty of space in your pouch and what harm will a half a donut do? Now it is lunchtime, and you are STARVING! That donut set you up for a blood sugar high and now a blood sugar low.

 

What is a starving person at lunch going to do? They are probably going to make some “not so perfect” food choices. This leads us to the afternoon slump. Who’s going for the cappuccinos and frappuccinos?

 

Arriving home for dinner – everybody is hungry and staring at YOU to put something on the table. So, you get busy and make some chicken with pasta or rice. You have a few bites, walk away, not stuffed, not even particularly full.

 

The kids have baseball practice and Joanne has brought some homemade cookies. Gimme two, please. I haven’t eaten much so I still have some room for some more food.

 

The scenario above is a perfect grazing storm for a regain. It is also a perfect storm for a major weight loss stall.

 

I know that we don’t always see how we graze our way through the day – enter the food log. If you are unsure as to whether you are a grazer or not, write it all down in an app or jot your food and beverages into a small book you carry in your purse. This tells the real story.

 

What does Eat. Stop. Eat. look like?

 

We start our day with a scrambled egg, a few cherry tomatoes, and a bite of avocado. Full. I cannot eat another bite. I am ready for my day.

 

Donuts are in a box next to the coffee maker but to be honest with you, I am full. I take a hard pass.

 

It is lunchtime and I am feeling hungry again. That lunch I packed for myself of high-quality deli meat, cucumber slices, an ounce of mozzarella cheese, and a few strawberries are going to be perfect. I am full once again.

 

“Anybody wants Starbucks”? – not you, because you are still full of lunch. That’s another hard pass for you.

 

You arrive home, put some dinner on the table and you sit down and eat with your family. You have some chicken, some veggies, and a bite of the yogurt dessert that your best friend made for you on the weekend.

 

Dishes and its time to head to the baseball game. Your friend has some cookies for you to try. You take one to be polite, but you stick it in your purse because you are stuffed from your dinner. On the way home, you hand the cookie to your son. You don’t want it filling your purse with crumbs.

 

You get home, get the kids ready for bed, make them a snack and have some berries and dream whip as an evening snack. That sure hit the spot.

 

Do you see the above two scenarios and why I stress that we need to use the bariatric tool as it was meant to be used? Eat. Stop. Eat.

 

If this can help one post-op person realize why their scale is stuck, or why the numbers are moving in the wrong direction, then I have done my job today.

 

Please use your beautiful bariatric tool as it was meant to be used. Sometimes it is the difference of one or two bites. Don’t fill yourself until the food is coming back up – just make sure to eat enough at mealtimes to keep your pouch full and satisfied for a few hours.

 

Eat. Stop. Eat.

 

Lifestyle Changes? Who Me? Bariatric Edition

 

Yes, YOU ….

 

Remember how when we made the decision to have bariatric surgery, we were ready for everything that decision came with. 

 

It meant paying a lot of money, possibly hopping a flight to have surgery in Mexico, doing a difficult pre-op diet, healing from laparoscopic surgery, making big dietary changes, adding a bit of walking to relieve gas pains.  It meant struggling to eat in the beginning, and having a hard time hitting your fluid intake.  We surgically altered our bodies.  That’s a BIG DEAL!

 

We all went into this with the very best intentions.  We were going to lead by example and make all the lifestyle changes that we needed to make to reach our goal weight and never look back.

 

Fast forward to two and three years later.  Now, it seems like a far off distant future but in reality, it’s only 24 months post-op.  Time FLIES!!   What about those lifestyle changes that you promised yourself to make?  Where are you today?

 

Let’s review. 

 

• How is your diet? Are you leading your meals with protein? 
• How is your fluid intake?  Are you still drinking sufficient fluids each day?
• Daily food logs – hands up if you still log your food and fluid intake.
• Food prep.  Are you still planning and prepping your meals?
• Are you exercising?  How active are you?
• How are your stress levels?  Low? High?
• How about your sleeping patterns?

 

When my clients reach out to me and ask me for the “pre-op diet” with the hope that it will help them lose the 5 to 25 pounds that they have regained, I always worry.  I worry because the pre-op diet was started when their weight was much higher. It doesn’t have the same effect as when they followed it at the beginning of their journey. 

 

I am also concerned when my clients have a regain but they also tell me that they are eating perfectly.  I can’t mess with perfection.  How can I help you if you have a perfect diet?  Maybe we need to look at the other factors that I listed above. 

 

You see, this “magic” sleeve isn’t actually magic.  It is a great tool and we need to balance that took with the mighty “lifestyle change”.  The sleeve or bariatric surgery is the tool to help you get the weight off WHILE you put the other pieces into place. 

 

Diet, exercise, sleep, stress levels, activity levels, food prep, journaling….  This is the real magic.  When all of this comes together, LONG TERM WEIGHT LOSS IS YOURS TO KEEP.

 

If you are planning on ONLY using the sleeve and not getting all of the other parts in order, I hate to tell you that you are headed in the wrong direction.

 

Now, if you’ve been off track and you are serious about going back in the right direction, then my suggestion is to get a good plan in place.  Failing to plan is planning to fail.  I truly believe this in all aspects of my life.  I cannot run a marathon if I don’t have a plan. I cannot open a business without a business plan.  I cannot create a healthy lifestyle without planning on how to do that.

 

Here are a few gentle suggestions:

 

1. Take your diet very seriously.  If you don’t know how to do that, talk to me.  I have plans in place to support you and programs in place to teach you how to do it.
2. Take your exercise program very seriously.  This is a HUGE part of the program.  If you do not have a regular exercise program in place, get a plan and set something up.  Don’t take this lightly.  It is a BIG part of the puzzle.  Weight loss may occur in the kitchen BUT good health occurs through exercise.
3. Make sleep a priority.  This is a biggie.  Guys, sleep is like FREE medicine. The body needs good quality sleep to perform at its best.  Go to bed an hour earlier.  Get serious and greedy with your sleep.
4. Are you stressed?  Get those stress levels DOWN.  Stress raises cortisol levels and high cortisol levels make it more difficult to lose weight. 
5. I want us all to collectively understand that long-term weight loss will depend on long-term lifestyle changes.  I want you to have long-term success.  Bariatric surgery is a big piece of the puzzle but it’s not the only piece.  Other parts need to come together. 
6. Look, we are not computers.  We make mistakes.  We also learn from those mistakes.  Let’s just do our honest best to figure out our current lifestyle and try to improve upon it.  It’s not easy.  You cannot buy it.  Your best friend cannot give it to you.  You need to make that decision, and you need to go after it as your life depends on it.

Can you do that?  I KNOW YOU CAN.  I believe in you.

 

Healthy Hugs,