Healthy Habits and Bariatric Surgery

As we start 2018 everybody seems to become very conscious of making healthy choices; this isn’t in our nature, but it is typically because everywhere you turn there are ads for fitness classes, ‘drop 3 dress sizes in 3 weeks’ with our slimming shakes, ‘new year new you’ and new diets to ‘lose weight fast’. A lot of us also overindulge during the holiday season and feel like the new year is a good time to start making ‘healthier choices’, to exercise more/join a gym or cut down our alcohol consumption/quit smoking.

It is also this time of year that we receive our highest number of enquiries from people exploring bariatric surgery as an option to aid their weight loss. Often this can be seen as a ‘quick fix’ or the ‘easy’ option. Our blog today is going to explain why it is not and how creating lifelong healthy habits are vital to everybody, no matter what your size or weight.

 

Being slim doesn’t equal being healthy

As a society we have been conditioned to believe that being thin/slim equates to being healthy – this could not be further from the truth. A recent study found that you can be obese whilst still being ‘metabolically healthy’, as well as being within a normal weight range but being ‘metabolically unhealthy’, and it is in fact the latter that carries a greater risk medically.

Although there is definitely an association between being overweight or obese and chronic disease, this doesn’t necessarily mean that making changes to your lifestyle can’t have a positive impact on your health regardless of your weight.

 

Why being healthy is just as important as weight loss

We associate losing weight with becoming healthier, which in one sense is true. As we lose weight we can reduce our cholesterol, find breathing easier or even sleep better at night. But it’s important not to focus solely on weight loss as your measure as more often than not whether you lose weight via weight loss surgery or diet alone, people are prone to regain weight lost.

Choosing to be healthy and not focus on your weight allows you a better chance at a longer life. Eating healthily, being more active and paying closer attention to your general wellbeing, including mental health, can have a significant impact on your overall health. Take the example of a thin but unhealthy person, and an overweight but healthy person. We can’t simply focus on weight but need to focus on lifestyle changes.

 

What are the lifestyle changes we need to make for a healthy life?

Now this next part isn’t going to be anything you haven’t heard before, but studies have shown that people who consistently followed these behaviours had a lower risk of mortality.

• A diet rich in vegetables and fruit (on average five servings of veg per day).
• Regular exercise (at least three times a week and generally being more active)
• Having good-quality sleep and sleeping patterns
• Moderating alcohol intake as well as avoiding or quitting smoking.
• Reducing stress wherever possible

 

But what has this got to do with bariatric surgery?

So by this point you may be asking yourself what this blog has to do with bariatric surgery. What a lot of our patients who first seek information out about weight loss surgery don’t realise is that it isn’t a ‘quick fix’ to lose weight. Following your surgery you will need to follow a new diet in order to lose the excess weight you have been carrying, regardless of the weight loss surgery procedure.

The new ‘healthy’ diet consists of a diet rich in protein, vegetables and fruit. It also encourages (once you have recovered from your surgery) regular exercise, starting at whatever level suits your abilities and increasing this steadily. Is this starting to sound familiar?

Once you have lost weight following bariatric surgery, this doesn’t mean that you will also remain at that level. The changes in your diet and activity level need to be lifelong, or unfortunately, and quite commonly, you are at risk of regaining the weight that you have lost.

This is why focussing on having a healthy lifestyle as opposed to losing weight should be a focus. One should naturally follow the other in terms of weight loss following surgery, and being overweight does not necessarily equal unhealthy either.