Bariatric surgery is the first step towards a healthier lifestyle for our patients, ahead of them is a journey requiring significant changes to diet and lifestyle to support weight loss. We are fortunate that in 2021 we have access to amazing advances in technology that can make this transition easier. One of the many tools that now exist to help you move towards a healthier lifestyle are apps for your smartphone.
Apps have come a long way since they were first introduced, and you can now download an app for pretty much anything you need day to day. This can make navigating the app store to find the rights apps to help aid your weight loss journey challenging, so together with the help of our dietitian Tania we have put together a list of some apps for you to try.
Food & Exercise Trackers
We’ll start with food and exercise tracking apps. These apps have a wealth of information supporting them, allowing you access to detailed information about different types of foods, from calorie counting to understanding the breakdown of nutrients contained in different foods to help you create a balanced diet. Here are some of our top recommendations:
- My Fitness Pal – you can record daily food and exercise using this app, also with the ability to share this with others. It has the largest food database of the available apps on the market and can provide you with a breakdown of your macronutrient intake, as well as fibre, cholesterol and vitamins.
- Easy Diet Diary – this is a calorie counter and diet tracker app. It allows you to scan bar codes in the supermarket or at home, providing a breakdown of your protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, fibre, sodium and calcium intake. This is very useful to ensure you are getting enough of the right types of nutrients depending on the point on your post-bariatric surgery journey you are at.
- Apple Health – for those of you with iPhones or Apple devices, this app incorporates activity, sleep, mindfulness and nutrition all in one place.
- Food Switch – this app may help you to choose the healthier option within the food category by simply scanning the food barcode.
Fluid Intake
A less obvious choice of app, but as you will be aware by now, fluid intake is incredibly important not only for your post-bariatric surgery diet but also in everyday life. Here are a couple of apps that you can use every day to ensure you are drinking enough water.
- WaterLogged – this app works with Apple Health and Fitbit, and can help you track your daily water intake and help you to improve on the amount of water you consume.
- HydroCoach – this is an app for Android devices that can help you to track and improve water intake throughout the day.
Meditation
Although the main aim of your bariatric surgery is to help you to lose excess body fat, enabling relief from other obesity-related conditions, it is not just physical health that we are aiming to improve but also mental health. Mental health plays an incredibly important part of your weight loss journey.
One app that we recommend to help support this is Smiling Mind. This is an app that has been developed by educators and psychologists to help bring balance and mindfulness to people’s lives.
Behavioural
Following on from the above, there are also apps available to help you deal with the behavioural side of eating and can be used to help you to adapt to your new lifestyle post-surgery. Here are a couple of apps and how they can help to support you throughout this period and on-going.
- Eat Slowly – this app helps you to slow down your eating, enjoy the taste of food and help you to avoid any complications with regurgitation or vomiting after surgery.
- Am I Hungry? Virtual Coach – this app helps you to avoid ‘non-hungry’ eating, whilst assisting you in determining physical signs of hunger. No more emotional eating or eating out of boredom.
These are just a few of the apps that we have put together for you today, but there are literally hundreds if not thousands available on the app stores for whatever device you use. This gives you the opportunity to try out different apps to find the ones you find easiest to make work for you on a daily basis. You can check out previews of the apps, read other peoples reviews on how they work and effectiveness, and most importantly the majority of these apps are completely free.
For more information and support following your bariatric surgery, check out our blog online where we cover a variety of different subjects to help you along the way.
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