Importance of Support After Bariatric Surgery

Bariatric surgery will improve health long-term as it greatly assists a person in losing excess weight. Because it involves surgery and because that surgery changes how your digestive system (stomach) works, it clearly involves some risks that need to be balanced against the benefits. The majority of people understand that this is how weight loss surgery works, but not everybody understands the other life changes one needs to make to see real, long-lasting change.

Each bariatric surgery procedure alters the way the body consumes food, and although each procedure does this in a particular way, the main aim is to reduce the number of calories a person consumes. A few examples: 

Gastric band – this will reduce the amount of food someone can consume by restricting/slowing the entrance of food into the stomach and helping them to feel less hungry. 

Sleeve gastrectomy – this surgery removes a large part of the stomach, leaving a narrow, banana shaped stomach behind called a ‘gastric sleeve’. This reduces the amount of food someone can consume and leaves them feeling satisfied for longer thanks to changes in hormones too. 

Gastric bypass – this surgery means food bypasses most of the stomach and instead goes into a small gastric pouch then into a loop of the small bowel (the jejunum) for digestion. This limits the amount of food a person can eat at a time, creates satiety through hormonal changes and often causes an intolerance for sugary, high-density carbohydrates as well as fatty, oily food.

 

Regardless of the initial procedure, they are all designed to help a patient lose excess weight and to be able to live a healthier life. But this is not achieved by the surgery alone. Changes to diet and lifestyle need to be made and maintained if a person wants to ensure they don’t regain the initial weight that they lose. Also, patients need to be aware that changes in how they eat and changes in their stomach caused by surgery will lead to significant risks of nutritional deficiencies unless they take care with their diet and vitamin/mineral supplements.

 

The Role of Family & Friends

The role of a person’s family and friends is so important to their long-term weight loss and weight maintenance. If we think about it, eating and drinking is a way that people bond across many cultures here in Australia and around the world. We celebrate big occasions with special meals with our loved ones, birthdays always call for birthday cakes, summer calls for  BBQ’s. People who have had weight loss surgery can still take part in the social aspects of eating, however they need to be supported to eat less while doing so.

When a person has had weight loss surgery, they need to consider what they are eating carefully for a number of reasons. The obvious is that they will only be able to consume smaller portions, and have to be conscious (as everybody should) to consume a healthy balanced meal so they are getting all of the nutrients they need from the smaller portions. They need to make sure they don’t go back to finish meals that they can’t eat in one sitting, and that they don’t compensate for smaller meals by eating more than 3 times a day. 

As we mentioned earlier, a gastric bypass patient may find themselves unable to eat certain types of food anymore without feeling sick. But when traditions involve different sugary foods such as sweets, cakes and chocolates, this can become difficult to manage. For example, if your family decides to have KFC for dinner and you now find you can’t tolerate fried, oily foods, it can make things difficult. However, in reality there are so many types of take-away and restaurant food available in Australia that it’s easy to find something that will suit everyone. 

 

Breaking & Changing Habits

Change is ultimately the responsibility of the individual, but the role that family and friends play in this change is incredibly important. A person who is making changes to their diet will need support to be able to do that, for example eating home-cooked healthy meals, having healthy snacks in the house as opposed to high-calorie snacks, and restricting alcohol intake as that is counterproductive to weight loss (for more information see our weight loss and alcohol blog). They will need to make changes to how active they are, whether that be trying to walk an extra 1,000 steps a day or exercising more. 

 

So how can friends and family help to support these changes? 

Get Involved – see this as an opportunity for the whole family or household to get healthier. Replace takeaways with healthy meals cooked at home that the whole family can enjoy. If everybody is eating healthy foods, then there won’t be as many temptations for the person trying hard to stick to their dietary changes. 

Get Active – start being more active together, for example going on long walks, joining an exercise group or going for a swim. A perfect way to catch up with a friend, or get some outside time with a work colleague on a lunch break. Being the instigator of these sorts of activities can often go a long way. 

Be Understanding – sometimes we can forget that our friends or family members are undergoing dramatic changes to their lifestyle. We need to be as understanding as possible. Sometimes people don’t even want to share that they have had surgery due to potentially negative stigma surrounding it. If we can be understanding, then there is a safe place for them to share their journey with those they love. Find out more about the stigma surrounding obesity here. 

Encourage Good Habits – you can still head to your favourite Italian restaurant for that birthday meal, but people after weight loss surgery will be more comfortable having 1-2 entree sized courses rather than the usual 3 course dinner. If you’re big drinking buddies, try meeting up for a coffee rather than a beer. If you usually grab a coffee when catching up, don’t order cake to go with it. Small, subtle changes can go a long way. 

Bariatric surgery is only a tool used in the overall weight loss journey, support of a new lifestyle from family and friends is another tool a person will need to succeed. You can find more information about bariatric surgery on our website or you can visit our blog where we share many helpful articles about related topics. If you would like to contact us to discuss bariatric surgery options then please call the practice on (02) 9553 1120 or contact us online.