Taking Charge of Weight Loss Goals

September 23, 2010 Culinary Medicine, weight loss surgery 0 Comments

As the end of the year is within sight,  how many of you are considering your resolutions for the New Year?

For patients who have undergone weight loss surgery, this can be a fun time of year, because it represents one of the few times that weight loss goals have been met.  But this is not the time to sit back—in fact, this is the time, more than ever, to focus on behaviors and routines that will promote progress moving forward. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Do not get too dependent on your weight loss surgery.  The surgery is just a tool  – and while early on it appears that weight falls off magically, as time goes on, the weight loss will taper.
  2. Remember there is NO surgery that will allow you to “eat anything you want” and lose weight. While it may seem so in the early stages – this is not an ongoing process.
  3. You have control over two important things – -what you eat, and how much you eat. Focus on these two things that are within your control.

What you eat is critical.  If you had the surgery, do you remember how following your surgery you drank a lot of fluids, tried hard to get protein in, and lost weight? As time goes on, things change and it becomes a lot easier to get a lot of food in. So – go back to basics. First, healthy food – -the junk food never helped you.  When eating out—forget those places that don’t offer good nutrition.

Second, and just as important- focus on the amount of food that you eat. Early on this was never a problem- you almost needed more protein than your stomach would let you have. Portion control is still a key to weight loss- do not let your stomach (whether it be stapled, banded, or bypassed) decide when to stop eating.  Twice a week plan on measuring out a portion of food- and eating that and no more. Learn to eat less and once you find out you are satisfied, keep up with those portions.

Weight loss surgery is a gift, but it is just the start of a journey.  The surgery is not meant to be a collar that keeps you from doing things—the surgery is meant to be a tool that will enable you to lose weight and experience greater overall health.

Don’t forget to join me in the Weight Loss Challenge!
Visit www.azlapband.com to find out more.

About the Author
You probably first saw Dr. Simpson on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. Dr. Terry Simpson received his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees from the University of Chicago, where he spent several years in the Kovler Viral Oncology laboratories doing genetic engineering. Until he found he liked people more than Petri dishes. After a career in surgery, his focus is to make sense of the madness, and bust myths. Dr. Simpson, an advocate of culinary medicine, believes in teaching people to improve their health through their food and in their kitchen. On the other side of the world, he has been a leading advocate of changing health care to make it more "relationship based," and his efforts awarded his team the Malcolm Baldrige award for healthcare in 2018 and 2011 for the NUKA system of care in Alaska and in 2013 Dr Simpson won the National Indian Health Board Area Impact Award. A frequent contributor to media outlets discussing health related topics and advances in medicine, he is also a proud dad, author, cook, and doctor “in that order.” For media inquiries, please visit www.terrysimpson.com.