Support Group Meeting 21st February 2018

In February we held our first Support Group Meeting of 2018 for our weight loss surgery patients. Bariatric surgery is just the beginning of a lifelong commitment to change that our patients need to make in order to return to and maintain a healthy weight. Attending our regular support group meetings will help keep you on track as well as provide useful insights and education that can help you along the way.

How thoughts can impact our eating habits

The focus of February’s support group meeting was a discussion on how thoughts may impact eating habits and it was run by our resident psychologist Fiona Tzouramanis. Here’s a summary of what was discussed during the support group.

This topic explored how our thoughts can influence our feelings, and then in turn impact on our actions (behaviours). When we experience unhelpful thought patterns, we then tend to experience unhelpful feelings. Our actions are then based on alleviating those unhelpful feelings which at times can then be detrimental to our weight loss and/or weight maintenance goals.

Emotions that can trigger this negative behaviour could be feeling stressed, anxious, tired, guilty, frustrated and so on. The actions following these emotions could be to choose to eat take away food, eating whatever food available, eating junk food or not eating at all.

After we engage in these actions we often then have feelings of guilt or are disappointed in ourselves. This then leads to self-doubt and unhelpful thought patterns. This negative cycle of thoughts, feelings and behaviours will continue unless we intervene.

How we can take positive steps to controlling our negative behaviour

Fortunately there are positive actions that we can take in two areas of this negative cycle.

Thought Stage – at the thought stage we can challenge our thoughts and come up with more rational type thinking that is not going to cause any distressing and unhelpful feelings. In turn the rational thoughts will help create helpful feelings and helpful actions.

Behaviour Stage – at the behaviour/action stage we can choose to accept our unhelpful thoughts and feelings, however still choose a positive action that is working towards our weight loss journey. Choosing a positive action will then have a positive influence on our thought patterns, therefore creating positive feelings.

Being mindful of our thoughts and understanding the impact on our feelings and actions is the key to a positive change. Making changes to the way we think isn’t necessarily easy but with practice this can be of huge benefit in the long run.

Each support group talks about different topics with different guest speakers. It gives attendees the opportunity to ask any questions and address any of their own issues, as well as being able to openly discuss their experience with other participants who are on the same journey. Click here to read reviews of our past support groups. 

If you would like to attend our next support group then please call our team on 02 9553 1120 and they will be able to reserve you a place. Our next support group takes place on Wednesday the 9th of May and our guest speaker is Dr Amira Sanki who will be discussing plastic surgery options for weight loss surgery patients.