Tips for Health after Bariatric Weight Loss Surgery
Bariatric weight loss surgery is designed to assist the morbidly obese in losing weight. The goal is to improve the overall health of the patient by reducing the risks that are associated with obesity. However, for optimum health to be obtained, it is important that the surgery only be a starting point to getting on the right track for a healthy lifestyle. After the weight loss surgery is complete, patients need to engage in appropriate exercise and a healthy diet in order to maintain the benefits of the surgery.
Bariatric surgeon Teresa LaMasters was recently interviewed by the Des Moines Register about her work. It that interview, she said that she finds the two biggest post-surgery problems amongst her patients to be "portion control and a sedentary lifestyle". In other words, if you get your weight loss surgery and lose the weight but then let your eating get out of control and sit on the couch all day … you aren't going to get the health benefits that you want to get from the surgery.
Addressing the two key areas noted by LaMasters, it is important that patients of weight loss surgery cut down on the amount that they are eating while increasing their exercise. This doesn't mean that you have to starve yourself or that you have to go to the gym every day. But if you can reduce the size of your plates, eating small meals several times throughout the day instead of bingeing on large meals a couple of times each day, you'll help control your portion intake. And if you start walking regularly, swimming in the summer and shoveling snow instead of paying someone else to do it, you'll get the exercise that you need without requiring a gym membership.
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