Lap-band weight loss surgery newsletter - January 2008

Successful Habits of Lap-band Weight Loss Surgery Patients

As the New Year begins we are thankful for many things and often resolve to do many things.

For those who have had surgery, it is learning to use the operation you had to set yourself for success. The great thing is that new habits can be learned all he time.

Our list of successful habits for weight loss surgery patients:

1. Every day they have fruits and vegetables with lunch and dinner. This is a key. Many patients pre op do not list these as common foods that they eat. Following surgery the successful patients have gotten rid of a lot of high glycemic items (breads, pasta, rice, crackers, chips) and the high starch vegetables are also gone except as more of a garnish (potato, corn). There is a wider variety of vegetables than they ever knew possible.
    

2. When asked if they eat the same things they ate before they had their operation they say "no." In fact, what they eat now is quite a bit different. Fast food is the most common one here. Most patients who went to fast food places before, now find that they don't offer the type of food they want. The places they ate at one time are no longer frequented -- although sometimes for better restaurants they simply changed what they normally ordered. But more often it is easier to change restaurants, and find a newer and healthier food to eat, than to go to the same places where they learned to be heavy.
    

3. The portion sizes of what they eat is much smaller than what they would eat before surgery. Many weight loss patients report that they probably could eat more, but they have become use to eating less, and prefer it. That when they try to eat more it doesn't feel right, and they could push it but are afraid to.
    

4. Salads ARE NOT that big a deal. Most successful patients don't eat salad. Strange -- but many find that what they liked was not the salad, but the high-fat, high-calorie dressing. Salads are rare for patients, unless there is protein in it. Others find that salads were a reminder of "diet" days -- when they ate salads, and it didn't work too well then (probably because they were filled with the salad dressing).
    

5. All say it is easy to slip into old habits, but fight to keep them away. No one says that a lifestyle change is easy -- and in a world where high calorie items are available easily this is something that makes it easy. A new habit of Starbucks is both expensive with calories and for a cup of coffee. Keeping vigilent is one constant theme of these patients.
    

6. Weekly weigh ins. They all find that this is helpful. Some patients tell me they are simply obsessive and want to do this, and some patients tell me they never want to see a scale again, but those who have had long term success always monitor what their weight is doing and if the trend is going in the wrong direction they try to figure it out. One of the more famous weight loss surgery patients (kept her weight off for over seven years) told me that she got up to 150 pounds (which on five foot eight inches is still not bad). She found three things to change: get rid of the chips, no more wine every night, and the beer gave way to her being a designated driver.
    

7. Calorie and fat conscious. All patients could tell me how many calories were in common items that they ate, common items that they use to eat, and items that many people would snack on. They were aware that nuts, seeds, peanut butter, and cheese were high fat items and not a healthy snack. They knew that liquid calories were unneeded.

The great thing is that these are all habits that anyone can incorporate, and these combined with the tool of weight loss surgery can help make this a year to either lose the last bit of weight or maintain the weight loss.

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