What is bariatric success?

Dawn (00:00):

Hello and welcome to the Gastric Health Show. My name is Dawn Boxell, and this week’s topic, we are talking about five bariatric success hacks that can cultivate healthy routines. So this is all about helping you kind of identify and maybe sort through how to start. So bariatric success is truly all about your daily routines, and usually most people are going to find that if their health is compromised or they’re struggling with regain or just weight stalls, you’re going to find the answers in your daily routines.

Dawn (01:00):

And honestly, a healthy routine needs to provide balance in your life, not extreme routines that are only temporary. So what do I mean by that? So no crash diets, no pouch resets, no liquid only, or going back to protein shakes that is not necessary. You need to fuel your body and learn how to fuel it appropriately that you’re not going to get in this vicious cycle of diet culture where you are consistently going in and out of different programs all the time.

Dawn (01:31):

You need foundational principles and you need support. To, and maybe some guidance to kind of help you get there. So unfortunately, reality is that sometimes life has different, it has a different idea about maintaining healthy behaviors because there’s restaurants on every corner, so many people have overcommitted schedules, they’re burnout, they’re isolated. And all of these lead to an environment where it’s hard to be a bariatric success. And to be successful with your bariatric surgery.

What is considered bariatric success?

Dawn (02:10):

So let’s kind of think about  what is considered bariatric success . And in my opinion, bariatric success is different for each person. And surprisingly, it’s rarely about the number on the scale or a size of clothing. For example,y after bariatric surgery, you could lose all your excess weight and be in a healthy BMI range, yet you are barely eating any food more than just a few bites at a meal and you’re miserable all the time.

Dawn (02:51):

To me, that hardly seems like a bariatric success. So sure, I mean, if we look at the big picture, you.. bariatric surgery did get the weight off and get you into a healthy BMI range. But if you have 12 new symptoms and feel worse, how is that success? How is that a bariatric success? The whole goal for people to do this is to get healthy and live their best life and do the things they wanted to do when they physically couldn’t.

Dawn (03:40):

So in the world of weight loss, it seems to promote a motto of weight loss at any cost, cost of your health, your sanity, your perspective. But in reality there is no quick fix and there is no magic pill. You are not going to solve all your health problems by following a pouch reset for 10, 15 days that is not going to cultivate healthy routines and make you an instant bariatric success.

How to maintain bariatric success ?

Dawn (04:11):

So to me, overall, if you want to think about what bariatric success means to you, these are the things that I think of is when your health issues are resolved and you’ve cultivated healthy routines that provide balance in your life. So there’s no extremes to it. You don’t have to go to the gym two hours, five days a week to maintain that. Because that’s unlikely to be your future. For most people, I’m sure there are many, especially athletes, they spend a eight hour working day training and using their body, but that is not the majority of us. We are not, we don’t need to be in the gym. And it’s all about finding balance. I mean, you had bariatric surgery to resolve your health issues and to be a bariatric success.

Dawn (05:00):

So let’s kind of dig into how you can cultivate a healthy routine that can be sustainable, that can get you through long term and forever the rest of your life. So most understand the basics of what to do, but knowing and doing are two completely different things. And here’s some examples. So to lose weight, most of you realize eating chips instead of fruits and vegetables won’t provide the desired result, but your weekly shopping cart contains more junk than produce. Think about that one. The next one is to prioritize self care.

Dawn (05:57):

Most know to schedule downtime, but you accept one more commitment. And the last one is to have time to exercise. It has to be early morning workouts for you, but then you stay up late binging on your favorite show. It reminds me of that Chinese proverb. Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different result. It sounds crazy when you read it or hear it, but if you relate.

Five hacks that cultivate healthy routines for bariatric success

Dawn (06:30):

Let’s dig into this so you have a deeper understanding of how you can help yourself, how you can move yourself forward to move from the knowing phase to the doing phase. And in reality, it’s all about consistency with small changes. And I’m going to dig into five hacks that cultivate healthy routines for bariatric success. So first off, ask yourself this. Do you want to change? This definitely can be a tough question, but a necessary one.

Dawn (07:08):

You have to really truly evaluate. Are you ready to give something up or change that… how you do things, how you do life and? For some of you, the pain has to be bad enough before you’re going to change. And a lot of you, I could guess that bar having bariatric surgery may have been your breaking point and . So if we kind of step back, you can say, Hey, I’ve done the hard part. I put my hand up and I said I want help. And I had bariatric surgery.

Dawn (07:50):

Bariatric surgery is a tool and it’s not going to magically solve life’s problems. It’s not going to magically make you feel fabulous without putting some effort on your part. But sometimes I like to kind of reframe this. So instead of saying I’ve given up so much with having bariatric surgery, maybe phrase it as I’m challenging myself to level up my health.

Dawn (08:21):

So evaluate what’s lacking. What do you feel like you are.. you want to change, you need to change it. Your health indicators are screaming at you to change it, but yet you haven’t committed, you haven’t implemented those changes. And that’s bariatric surgery again, is going to get you so far. But what can you do to help yourself to get to that next level? So second, let’s realize this. What behavior do you need to work on?

Dawn (09:00):

So first you ask yourself, do you want to change? And then second, what behavior do you need to work on? And honestly, it’s best to focus on one routine at a time and it needs to be important to you and. Don’t make it so extreme. Don’t pick the hardest one first. Usually I tell my clients to pick something that you’re halfway there already, you’re kind of doing it, you just don’t all the time.

Dawn (09:30):

And this one could be impactful to your health and that you have some confidence that I could do this, I’ve done this, I can do it. So those are the ones that you would focus on. Pick one of those. So maybe you jot down a list and you decide, hey, what am I going to, what behavior am I gonna work on? And you pick one of those cause you could probably come up with several things, but you’ve got to narrow it down to one that you’re going to focus some time on.

Dawn (10:00):

And then third, I want you to consider this, what is the trigger? So every habit has a trigger whether you or someone else established it. So it could be that your grandma established a food reward when you came home from school or when you got a good grade or when celebrating things.

what’s the trigger?

Dawn (10:28):

So you have this habit, you have these neural pathways that are set to, I get food when I am successful with something so. When you think about triggers, think about this, what time will it occur, where will you be and what emotion do you think you’ll be feeling so? When you step back and say, what’s the trigger? If every habit has a trigger, what’s triggering me to not do what I know I need to do? You intuitively know this, you’re smart, you know this, but why is it that you get yourself in a rut or, and I can include myself in this. So there is no perfection here.

Dawn (11:00):

So this is something that I have to work on as well. And I’m gonna be honest, any healthcare professional, we do not have it all together either. So there are things that we are really good at and then there’s still some things that we’re not. So it doesn’t mean that it just means we’re human. It means we’re human and it’s okay. And that’s where being with supportive people that can help guide you and challenge you is important and it can help move you along

Dawn (11:52):

Faster. So when you think about the triggers, what time does it occur? Is it always when I’m tired or I’m excited or I’m hungry? Do I make those poor choices because I’ve waited too many hours between my meals? So things like that, think of that. And then where will you be? Is it always as soon as you walk in the door from work? And then what emotion are you feeling or think you would be feeling? And it could be your hangry. So those explore the triggers, what.. you know the things that you want to work on and the things that you get hung up on.

Dawn (12:39):

So those are the things you can write down. Now, fourth, I want you to explore this. What would be the reward? So routines become powerful when you crave, how it makes you feel as opposed to what you give yourself as a treat. So it doesn’t mean you have to even do anything. You don’t have to eat anything. You could just say, Hey, I feel fabulous because I came home, I ate a snack at the end of my workday and I didn’t come home hangry. So things like that that you didn’t have to come home and go into that habitual routine of grabbing a snack as soon as you get in.

Dawn (13:21):

And I always recommend rewards to not be food based. So I want you to think deeper. What gives you life and fills you up emotionally? And he, here are some things to consider, maybe like quiet time or journaling or you do a hobby or it’s just time with people you care about. You can pick any of those things, but you know have to get to that emotional level and really see what it is that gets you hung up.

Routine that can really help you be a bariatric success

Dawn (14:00):

Now let’s pull all this together. Ideally you should write out a plan and jot everything down. So you’re going to go through all these, you’re going to say, do I really want to change and? you’re going to answer that. And then second, you’re going to say, what behavior do you need to work on? And then what trigger and? then what would be my reward? So you’re building this flow or you’re building this RO routine that can really help you be a bariatric success.

Dawn (14:29):

You can shift from the knowing to the doing by implementing these strategies. I love Charles Duhigg’s, how to Create a Habit book. And it’s a great guide. He even has a download of it step by step of how to do it. And if you just Google Charles Duhig how to create a habit like worksheet or something of that nature, it populates this whole kind of algorithm of what you do. So now I want to give you some examples.

Dawn (15:00):

I wanna apply this. So let’s go back to those beginning examples that I gave. So to lose weight, most realize eating chips instead of fruits and vegetables won’t provide the desired result. That is pretty easy for most people and it’s pretty publicized and understood. But yet here people are that they’re stuck in these routines that their weekly shopping cart has more junk food than fruits and vegetables and healthy produce in it.

Dawn (15:46):

So let’s assume grocery shopping is never planned. So you never do a meal plan, you never plan ahead. You just on a whim, you go to the grocery store with no list and no idea what you’re making and you kind of just make up your meal plans as you go through the grocery aisles and you grab what looks tasty or you grab the same things every time you shop because you’re just going to do Taco Tuesday and spaghetti Wednesday.

Dawn (16:20):

Those types of things. In order to change what you are putting in your shopping cart, in order to get the junk out and the produce in it’s going to require change, you’re going to have to do something different. So the habit would be you want to replace chips with fruits and vegetables. So instead of, and in all honesty, you may start off with, instead of buying two bags of chips, you might buy one bag of chips and then you’re gonna pair some chips with a fruit or a vegetable and that’s fine.

Dawn (16:53):

There’s nothing wrong with that. Again, it’s all about baby steps and meeting you where you are because it doesn’t matter how long it takes you, the important thing is that you make those changes, you make it through these shifts. So the habit is replace the chips with fruits and vegetables and the trigger is when you grocery shop. And then the routine is, I will meal plan and find new recipes with fruits and vegetables to try.

Dawn (17:20):

So maybe you’re going to sit down the night before and you’re going to jot down a list of what you could make for however many days you’re shopping for. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this either. Sometimes I literally do this. I will drive to the grocery store and sit in the parking lot and maybe scroll through Pinterest on some recipes that I’ve saved. And then that’s my shopping list and I’m only doing that day.

Dawn (17:55):

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it that you have to meet yourself where you’re at. And if that’s where you are that week, it’s fine. Go with it, pull up Pinterest, find a recipe, go buy what you need and go home and cook it. Now what’s the reward? So if you want to replace chips with fruits and vegetables, when you grocery shop, you need a plan, you need a list, and you need a plan of what vegetables and what fruits you need. And if you don’t enjoy chopping things up, buy ’em already, cut up. Those are so readily available.

Dawn (18:30):

Don’t let you know 50 cents or a dollar hold you back from just buying it. Chopped up, chopped up if it prevents you from going through a drive fruit drive through. So what would be the reward? And you can think of the reward is it provides me with empowerment that I am fueling my body. And empowerment that you did it.

Dawn (18:59):

You set out a task and you did it. It can also be some fun memories with using your grandmother’s recipe. So maybe you pull out some old rest family recipes that you can make. And then some people, myself, including myself, I find therapy in chopping and mixing up food. So that to me makes it easier to be in the kitchen. That’s why I don’t mind being in the kitchen. It’s an outlet for me. But that not everybody experiences that. And that’s okay. That’s when you buy the precut up things and you keep it simple.

It’s a necessary piece in being a bariatric success

Dawn (19:40):

And then additionally, being proactive and not reactive and controlling what goes into your body. So those are the rewards by making that one change. So you want that habit to be more fruits and vegetables instead of chips. And when you go to the grocery store, you’re going to go with a list and a plan and then you’re going, the reward is going to be that you did it, did what you set out to do, you went from knowing to doing.

Dawn (20:14):

And that’s important and that is, so it’s a necessary piece in being a bariatric success. Because again, bariatric surgery only can do so much. It’s a tool. It is a way to get your metabolic health in a better place at a quicker rate. And it can help improve your health quickly, which there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. So hopefully you’re getting the idea and can start maybe trying different triggers and different rewards. But the goal is make it fun and try to keep a sense of humor and you just never know.

Dawn (20:40):

You might be surprised what actually works and what gets you out of buying so many bags of chips and eating more fruits and vegetables and. Sometimes it’s about including your family, including your kids, including your husband, including your wife, including the people that can help. And maybe you delegate things and .I don’t do this every time, but when possible I will.

Apply these five hacks to get back to balance

Dawn (21:33):

As soon as I come home from the grocery, I will wash the produce and jar it up and put it in the refrigerator so that it’s grab and go ready. Or I might hard boil a dozen eggs for the week or make some little deviled eggs. Or if you saw my recipe of the salt and vinegar, hard boiled eggs, they are delicious. If you love the salt and vinegar chips, this is a great alternative, although it’s not crunchy, it has a same flavor and it’s very healthy for you.

Dawn (22:00):

It’s protein. You get the apple cider vinegar and which can help with your gut health, can help with your blood sugar balance. So it’s a great recipe, just look in my social media and you’ll find that recipe to try. It’s delicious. And it’s also, now that I’m thinking about it, it is also in our three day low carb high fiber plan.

Dawn (22:34):

So you can actually download that for free and just hit the link in my bio and you will find that, PDF guide that you can get. Three days of recipes that are low carb and high fiber. So let’s kind of wrap this all up. Establishing bariatric success is truly all about routines. And when your healthy routines are rusty or you’re just done so much and you’re ready to level up to the next one, I would apply these five hacks to get back to a balanced, fulfilled life. And additionally, I would encourage you to check out our gastric health membership.

Dawn (23:00):

We are building a community that can be there for you. We can encourage you, we can grow your self belief, build your self trust, trust. Bariatric surgery is hard enough, so don’t do it alone. So I would encourage you to check out our membership because it is a great place for you to land so that you can nourish those routines and really get your self belief and your confidence up in the kitchen because we’ll have all kinds of things.

We will work on resetting your gut health and kind of rebuilding and recondition it

Dawn (23:52):

We’ll have weekly zoom meetings. We’re going to have free group challenges and stuff that we’re going to do, and just group things that you can heal from. So if you’re having heartburn, we’re going to have solutions for you to resolve your heartburn after gastric bypassing gastric sleeve surgery. So, and your gut health, we’re going to have a group where we will work on resetting your gut health and kind of rebuilding and recondition it. And we’ll do that as a group.

Dawn (24:30):

And that’s where the membership is great, because if you’re a member, you’ll have access to those for free. So you won’t have to pay a couple hundred dollars for the group challenge with 30 days of heartburn recovery or your gut health or whatever you’re struggling with. Those will come include, those will be included with the gastric health membership. So I hope you’ll check it out because I think you’ll find that it will provide you the support you need.

Conclusion

Dawn (25:06):

We offer unlimited dietitian visits and we offer discounts on our packages. So if you order a test like the three x four genetic test and the stool, a gi-map stool test, those, you get a 40% discount. You get free shipping on all of our gastric health supplements. So there’s so many things that I feel like are beneficial to the bariatric community and we can provide a personalized plan based on your health conditions and what you’re dealing with. You know, fill out a long assessment form and I get a feel of your overall health and the challenges that you’re facing, and we put a plan together and it’s personalized to you. And then the recipes that come with it, you’ll get some plans that you can utilize.

Dawn (25:40):

So I hope you’ll check out our gastric health membership. I’m excited to get it rolling and grow it and I know it’s going to take time. But I would love and be honored to have all of you join us because I think it’s going to be a great place, a great place, no matter where you’re at with surgery, if you’re just thinking about it or your 20 years post-surgery doesn’t matter, it will work for all of you. So I hope this has helped and enjoy your day. See you next time. Bye-bye.
Your future health awaits…