You’ve been struggling to lose weight on your own, with little to show for your efforts. So you’ve decided that weight loss surgery is going to offer you the best chance for success.
But as the more than 260,000 people who opt for weight loss surgery each year in the United States can tell you, you shouldn’t consider bariatric surgery a one-and-done event that miraculously helps you shed weight with no contribution on your part.
Going this route still requires your participation in terms of changing your eating habits and lifestyle. And those efforts should happen both before and after the procedure.
At Rockwall Surgical Specialists, our team of skilled general surgeons has helped many patients lose unhealthy pounds through bariatric surgery, and we’re confident we can do the same for you. You can rest assured that we’ve got our end covered. Here’s what we want from you on your end.
For at least two weeks leading up to your weight loss surgery, we ask that you place yourself on a very strict, low-fat diet. We’re sure that your journey to lose weight has included ample dieting, so this strict diet should be familiar territory.
We tailor the diet to your needs, but you can expect that it will be heavy on protein shakes and vegetables, while sugars and carbs will be almost nonexistent.
This last diet before your weight loss surgery is incredibly important as it’s designed to reduce the fat around your liver and in your abdomen, which can influence your surgery. If there’s too much fat around your liver at the time of your surgery, we may have to opt for open surgery instead of minimally invasive laparoscopy or postpone the surgery until we determine it’s safe.
Your preoperative diet will not only prepare you for a safer procedure, but it will also help prepare you for life after your surgery.
Whether we perform a gastric band or a gastric sleeve, your eating habits afterward will need to change quite dramatically. These procedures restrict how much food you can eat, so cutting back before the procedure can make this transition far smoother, physically and mentally.
Your dietary habits are as much physical as they are mental. For example, every time you sit down to watch TV, you may grab your favorite snacks, whether or not you’re hungry. In fact, your body may be so accustomed to these routines that it releases hunger hormones in response to habit versus need.
We’re sure that none of this is news to you, but we’re making this point again to underscore the importance of preparing both your body and your mind before your weight loss surgery to lay the groundwork for a new way of viewing, and eating, food.
Of course, we go over all of this in great detail before we perform your weight loss surgery, but we wanted to use this opportunity to start the bariatric surgery pre-gaming.
For more information about preparing for your weight loss surgery, please feel free to contact us at one of our Texas locations in Rockwall, Rowlett, Greenville, Terrell, or Forney.
