No, it's not just you. This time of year, it seems like everyone is battling some kind of cough, flu or strange virus. If you have recently undergone weight loss surgery or are several months post-op, don't let these winter bugs pull you off track. Here are the tricks and tips I offer to my own bariatric patients here in New Jersey to stay healthy.

Losing weight after bariatric surgery demands a lot from your body and mind. You are engaged in a completely new way of eating and daily living ─ it’s a big change. During this transformation, the last thing you want is to face a setback due to an acute illness such as flu, cold or other viral infection.

Being ‘under the weather’ can also derail whatever exercise program you are engaged in ─ and that’s not good either.

Those of us who work in hospitals know several tips and tricks to keep from getting sick by boosting our immune systems. I’d like to pass these ‘insider’ tools on to you:

• Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night, no matter what.
  

• Find ways to help lessen stress and do them every day.
  

• Stay hydrated; aim to drink 5 water bottles daily.
  

• Sweat it out. Keep moving and sweating at least 30 minutes daily.
  

• Wash your hands for a full minute, all the time.
  

• Eat foods rich in zinc, such as grass-fed beef, pumpkin seeds and spinach. Zinc stimulates your body to produce immune-boosting antibodies and overcome cold viruses.
  

• Add vitamin C-rich foods (I favor oranges and bell peppers) to your diet. Vitamin C stimulates the production of antibodies to help fight infections (and lessen cold symptoms such as a runny nose).
  

• Super-charge your gut with healthy bacteria just by eating Greek yogurt.
  

• Go ahead and eat the garlic ─ it’s a potent antiviral, anti-fungal and antibacterial weapon.
  

Germs and sicknesses, in varying degrees, are out there right now ─ but that doesn’t mean you have to fall victim to them. Living a healthy lifestyle every day makes serious chronic diseases and common seasonal bugs less likely to take hold of you.

Just like overcoming obesity, it’s another way to boost your quality of life, every single day.

Thanks

Thanks for this article! I'm five months post-op and have been sick three times since the beginning of January. I'm currently sick again and pretty miserable. I'll be adding some of these things into my routine.

I'm doing all of these things (well not the grassfed beef) and I still feel like a bug is trying to catch me. For the past month I have at least one day of the week where I'm just beat. I'm sneezing like crazy and occasionally have a runny nose. It's like my body is trying to fight off a bug and it just keeps attacking.

Zinc, C, Probiotics and garlic. Sounds like my go-to techniques for avoiding getting sick NOW. Good to know I'll be able to use them after surgery too!

One question, though. Anybody gotten any advice on flu shots and/or pneumonia vaccine post-op? I should be about 2 months post-op when I would normally get my flu shot.....