NewBeginning2015

@7 Bites_Jen, great article! Thanks for taking the time to pull it together.

@7 Bites_Jen, great article! Thanks for taking the time to pull it together.

Does your New Year resolution include Weight Loss Surgery to help you achieve your goals this year? This is a great list of Weight Loss Surgery resources just for you!


With the New Year comes the New Year Resolutions. For many people, one of the largest resolutions is a change in lifestyle - that includes losing weight! I remember my resolution in 2012 was to lose weight and get healthy. And I was able to do that with the help of the vertical sleeve. 2015 is going to hold that for many people and thousands of people undergo weight loss surgery to help them achieve their healthy goals for the new year.
For those of you that are just thinking about surgery, I want to encourage you to know that you are not alone! You have a wealth of resources at your fingertips. I wanted to take a moment to share with you some amazing resources that you may find helpful on your journey!
Websites
BariatricPal.com Of course, BariatricPal is one of the very best websites to find information and support. Here there are “rooms” geared for each surgery as well as pages for recipes, articles, and much more. You will find information on everything you might want to know from before surgery to years after. I suggest checking out the Before/After pages for a good dose of motivation and inspiration!
7BitesShow.com 7 Bites is the first cooking series on YouTube geared specifically toward the bariatric community. The website has videos, recipes and blog posts.
weightlosssurgerychannel.com Weight Loss Surgery Channel has a collection of videos on everything WLS related weather it be health, food and recipes, and more.
BariatricFoodie The Bariatric Foodie has some great recipes for those that still love food, but want to stay on track
TheWorldAccordingToEggface Eggface is one of the most popular of the bariatric cooking blogs. You will find great recipes, blog posts and giveaways on her blog.
BariatricCookery.com This is a great resource page for everything from recipes to products.
Books
The “Big Book” series by Alex Breacher and Natalie Stein. There are four books in the series and all are great reads. They have a wealth of information on everything you need to know before, during and after surgery. The very best thing about these books is that they include personal stories from people that have been there.
Breaking The Chains: A Guide To Bariatric Surgery by Jennifer DeMoss and Suzette Munson. The ladies of 7Bites pull from their and others’ experiences with weight loss surgery to provide a simplified, but comprehensive guide. Information on everything from how to pick your surgery and doctor to how to survive the first two weeks after surgery are included.
The Sleeved Life by Pennie Nicola. This book tells about Pennie’s experience with the Vertical Sleeve procedure and discusses the ins and outs of the surgery from start to finish.
Weight Loss Surgery For Dummies. The everything you ever wanted to know and then some guide to all things weight loss surgery. Many, MANY doctors and nurses recommend this book to their patients.
Another great resource not listed here is your local bariatric support group! If you haven’t found one yet, contact your Surgery Center of Excellence or your nutritionist, they should be able to give you a good idea of one or two in your area. Or you can check out the list here on Bariatric Pal - it’s a very comprehensive list of support groups around the world!

There is a significant amount of variability as to how much weight people lose following weight loss surgery. Research indicates that up to 20% of patients fail to lose the expected amount of weight following surgery. While there are surely surgical and medical explanations for this outcome, patient behavior has also been shown to play a role. Therefore, it is important for anyone having surgery to anticipate and understand factors under their control to improve outcome.


I often tell patients, “The surgery does what the surgery does.” What I mean by this is that weight loss surgery almost certainly will affect how much food you can eat, but may do little to change what you eat. Weight loss surgery does not make you suddenly crave healthier and less caloric food. You have to make those choices for yourself. Additionally, while losing weight may make it easier for you to adopt a more active lifestyle, surgery itself will not make you suddenly fall in love with exercise. So making health behavior changes in addition to having surgery remains critical. So what specific health behavior changes have been shown to improve outcome?
1. Document what you eat – Many people strongly dislike writing down what they eat but there is evidence that this helps people after weight loss surgery as it does with non-surgical approaches. The reason is likely that documenting what you eat gives you valuable information about your behavior and allows you to make changes when necessary. Consider that your actual weight is the end product of what you eat, so weighing yourself gives you the results, but not the information necessary to make changes. For many, weighing themselves is a pass-fail exam. Either I’m a good boy or a bad boy. Consider that you can’t actually change your weight…you change what you eat and/or exercise, and that is what helps change your weight.
Many people seem to have little or no objection to weighing themselves so why do so many people despise writing down what they eat? Writing down what you eat is the truth teller. It forces you to acknowledge what you are doing. To avoid seeing the truth, you can either change what you eat or stop writing it down. Unfortunately, many people choose the latter. The good news is that in the smartphone era, there are literally dozens of apps and other technological devices that can make documenting your food and activity level extremely easy. If you do a little research you can find one that is right for you.
2. Exercise – You probably saw this one coming as well because it makes sense. Regular exercise is a way of burning calories and losing weight that does not involve changing what you eat. Given how difficult it is to lose weight and keep it off, it would be silly not to take advantage of one of the few methods known to work. Ironically, it might not work the way you would expect. Many people who lose weight through exercise notice that it helps them not just by burning off calories, but also by affecting their food choices. In other words, when you discover how difficult it is to burn off 250 calories on a treadmill, you may think twice before having that chocolate bar afterwards. Not everyone finds this effect, but for those who do, it can make a big difference.
When deciding what form of exercise to do, consider that you don’t need to become an Olympiad or a marathon runner. Many of the positive effects of exercise have been documented with just walking 30 minutes 3-4 times per week. If rigorous exercise is enjoyable for you, that’s great. But any time spent engaged in activity is beneficial...especially if you would otherwise be sitting on the couch watching all of those tempting food advertisements on television!
3. Stress Reduction – An increasing amount of research has documented a relationship between stress and weight gain. The obvious connection is that many people use food as a means of comforting themselves from distress, commonly called “emotional eating.” An interesting new discovery is that is that some people who report high levels of stress gain weight even when their calorie intake is unchanged. How is that possible? There is the suggestion that stress hormones and other chemicals may affect how our body metabolizes food and stores food. So even if you’re eating the same foods and the same number of calories, what your body does with those calories can vary.
If you’re going to be successful in reducing stress, you need to begin by discovering what “pushes your buttons” and take steps to change. One first step could be to document the things that you find to be stressful. Sometimes just writing down your problems makes them less frightening now that they’re just words on a page. For other people, writing their sources of stress naturally leads them to write what they might do about them. Another good idea is to investigate some simple stress management techniques. Many refer to them as relaxation or meditation exercises. As discussed earlier, there are a number of excellent smartphone apps and other technology-based methods of relaxation that you can explore. No one is better than the rest so just find one that works for you and begin to incorporate relaxation/meditation into your daily routine. If reducing your stress requires more than practicing relaxation techniques, consider speaking to a psychologist or other mental health professional to get the help you need.
4. Get some sleep – Here’s another suggestion that you’ve probably seen in the media recently. There is growing consensus of an obesity-sleep connection. Like exercise, the benefits of sleep are more than meets the eye. The obvious connection is that if you’re up longer, you become hungrier and are likely to eat late at night. This interpretation is not wrong, however, new research suggests that people who get 7 or more hours of sleep tend to maintain lower weights even when people with fewer hours of sleep consume the same amount of calories. How is that possible? Again, it’s not just how many calories we eat…but what our bodies do with those calories. Unfortunately, an increasing number of people are so busy between their work and social lives (not to mention all those tempting television shows) that sleep is not a priority. Just know that making sleep the last priority comes at a cost.
Consider how we train children to sleep. We create a nighttime ritual to ease kids to bed. There’s dinner, wind down time, then bath time, maybe reading a story or two in bed, and then lights out. Many adults however have a terrible routine. Eat a big dinner at 9pm, catch up on emails and pay bills, watch television for an hour or so and then fall asleep on the couch and stumble into bed at 2AM only to have to wake up three or four hours later. Try to change your sleep habits by changing your nighttime ritual. Eat an earlier dinner. Try to pay bills and check your emails at another time. Use the evening as wind down time. Rather than fall asleep on the couch, watch a set amount of television or Internet time and then turn it off and “put yourself to bed.” Begin by trying to go into bed a half-hour early every night for a week and see how you feel. If you notice some improvements in your level of energy, mood, appetite or other factors, see if you can make it permanent.
5. Join a Support Group – Some research has demonstrated that patients who participate in support groups lose and maintain more weight than those who don’t. Of course it may depend on the content of the group and who attends, but adding a social element to your weight loss and weight maintenance goals seems to help. This may relate to the accountability factor discussed earlier. If “we’re all in it together,” there may be more of a commitment to stick to your goals to help out the group. Or perhaps it motivates you not to be the one group member who is falling behind. Either way, participating in support groups seems to have benefits both in terms of weight loss as well as emotional well being after surgery.
There are other suggestions of course, such as improving your diet by reducing carbohydrates in favor of lean protein and a more plant-based diet. However, for many people, changing their diet can push all of those emotional “diet” buttons; so before you make those changes (or in addition to making those changes), strongly consider some of the changes recommended above. There is evidence that the benefits are additive. For example, many people find that when they exercise, they sleep better and in turn these changes help them manage stress better. The key is to acknowledge whether or not some of the factors above are problem areas for you and to begin making small changes. Sometimes small changes can lead to big results!

As the New Year approaches everyone begins assessing how they have done over the last year and what changes they will make going into the New Year. If you have had surgery in the last year, you have a lot to look back on: all of the changes, all of the pounds lost, and all of the amazing things you are doing now. If you are still trying to decide if the next year will be your year for surgery, I strongly hope that you read on.


As the New Year approaches everyone begins assessing how they have done over the last year and what changes they will make going into the New Year. If you have had surgery in the last year, you have a lot to look back on: all of the changes, all of the pounds lost, and all of the amazing things you are doing now. If you are still trying to decide if the next year will be your year for surgery, I strongly hope that you read on.
At the end of 2013 I was a guy who could barely get up out of a chair, someone who was scared to go down the stairs for fear of getting hurt, was hurting on a regular basis, and dreamed that there had to be more to life than wasting away on the couch. I sat in bed at night dreaming of doing all of the things I never thought I would ever be able to do. Then on November 4, 2013, I took the plunge.
“But your surgery wasn’t in 2014?” you may say.
True, but my journey truly began in 2014 as I has just finished recovering from surgery and was starting to piece my new life together. Over the last year I have seen my body change. I went from being over 530lbs down to a current weight of 310lbs. I still have plenty more to go, but not bad for a year of hard work. During the last year I walked a 5K and walked my first 10K, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I then bought a bike and began biking in events which culminated in a 30 mile ride at Bike MS Venture the Valley and a 38 mile ride at the Twisted Pretzel ride in Germantown, Ohio. Still it wasn’t good enough. I follow the biking up with a three quarter mile swim in the Ohio River. I swam from the Cincinnati side to the Kentucky side and back in under 17 min. I actually got 6th place in my age group if you can believe that, but it still wasn’t good enough. I could do more. I finished out my year by running my first ever 5K without stopping at the DAV 5K and attempted the Thanksgiving Day 10K with mixed results. I ran 4 of the six miles and learned some valuable lessons on nutrition and training.







Looking back I have had an amazing and productive year. I have done some amazing things that only a year ago I was dreaming about. The problem for me is that with all of those amazing things, it is still not good enough. For me, every time I push myself, I want to find my absolute limit. The problem is that when I get to the end, I realize I could push harder, or go longer, or go faster. I have not yet found my body’s limit. That is just how amazing it is. So what do I do about it all?




I PLAN 2015!




In 2015 I plan on doing more 5K’s and local bike races, but the big events are simple. I will begin training to run the 15K at the Heart Mini followed by the half marathon at the Flying Pig. I then want to compete in my first triathlon. It is an Olympic triathlon in Cincinnati, Ohio. I plan on finishing out my year with a 2.4 mile swim in the Ohio River down in Louisville, Kentucky. I want to continue pushing those limits in 2015 and I have a sneaking suspicion I will still not find my limits.
I strongly encourage you all as 2014 comes to a close to begin thinking about your journey over the last year. Yes there are plenty of other fun resolutions to make like reading more, learning a new language, or taking a chance on love, but for now I want you to concentrate on you and your weight loss. I want you to take inventory of the amazing things that have happened over the last year and all of the area where you feel like you have not pushed it to its limit. Make a list, make it tangible, hang it where you will constantly be reminded of the list. I just want you to ponder it for a couple days. Then you can move on to step two.
Step two is where you begin making your goals and resolutions for the New Year. I want you to make sure that these are goals that you can accomplish with pushing yourself a little. I don’t want them to be too easy or too hard. If you need help with this, my door is always open, shoot me a line. I want you to think of all the things you have dreamed about doing but your weight has held you back from. Make a list of those things and begin knocking things off of the list. This could be things as simple as going down a flight of stairs without help like it was for me at the beginning of the year, or it could be to run a marathon. I do not know where you are in this journey, but you need to make your resolutions ones that are personal to you. If you are not passionate about the things you are trying to accomplish nothing will come of it. I have been working really hard to gain sponsors to help me reach my goals for the next year and for years to come. I got my first one for next year just this week and am super excited, but I am still going to push with my resolution to try and have three sponsors before the end of May.




Remember when you are forming your resolutions that you follow the formula for SMART goals. Make sure they are:
S – Specific – The more specific you are on the details of your goals the easier it is to monitor progress
M – Measureable – You should be able to give a specific number to your goals (distance, time, reps, etc.)
A – Attainable – These should be goals that are feasible to accomplish in a set time frame.
R – Realistic – Being a goal you are both willing and able to work toward.
T – Timely – Make sure your goals have a specific time frame.




I hope this helps you begin thinking of what resolutions you will make with your own journey going into 2015. This last year has been truly amazing and I can’t wait to hear all the amazing stories from readers going through the next one. I strongly encourage all of you to share your resolutions in the comments below so the Bariatric Pal community can rally around and encourage you as your pursue a whole new level of awesome in 2015.




I BELIEVE IN YOU! MAKE 2015 EPIC!