Weight Regain

Many patients worry about regaining the weight they have lost, further down the line after their surgery. This is a question we get asked often and it is completely understandable – you have worked hard after your surgery to lose the weight and in many cases, you will have paid a lot of money for it too. It’s normal to feel a little anxious about this but if you continue to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating well and exercising regularly there is no reason why this should happen

A comprehensive study has shown that at 3 years post-surgery most patients will have lost:

Sleeve: 55 – 60% of their excess weight loss

Bypass: 55 – 70% of their excess weight loss

That’s a lot of weight anyway but many patients smash these goals out the park and far exceed these figures. Once you have lost your weight though it is important to continue to work hard to maintain it. Often weight regain is due to becoming too complacent and relaxing your diet a bit. We often see patients going back to having fizzy drinks or starting to snack more often and slowly the weight may start to creep up again

Identifying the reason your weight is edging back up again is the first step to putting it right – have your portions gotten a little bigger, is alcohol intake increasing, have you become less active recently, are you eating more chocolate or crisps, are your meals less healthy than before – whatever the reason you can work on it and get back on track!    

Try our top tips to help:

• If you find yourself slipping back into old habits address them straight away
• If you feel you are eating has become out of control, see you GP to ask for counselling support. Overeaters anonymous can also provide free help with this
• Continue to weigh yourself regularly so you can keep on top of it – no more often than once a week though
• Aim to eat 3 regular meals daily rather than snacking a lot on the go – the smaller and more often approach works more if you aren’t eating much at all so not always suitable for later on in your weight loss journey
• Ask your GP to refer you to a local dietitian if your aftercare has expired or doesn’t include follow up appointments
• Try and increase your exercise levels to help with the weight
• Keep a record of your food intake so you can take an honest look at it to see where the additional calories are coming from
• Don’t forget the 20+ rule – keep up with the good habits you have adopted
• Stay positive – the surgery you have had is still there – you still have the help to work at your weight, you just need to refocus and get back on track.
• Ask for help if you need it – you weight loss friends here on BandBoozled can help. Post your thoughts and your progress and we can help with the motivation

Patients also worry that their smaller stomach pouch may stretch allowing them to eat more and thus rgain weight. This can be true to a certain extent, but it is unlikely that you will be able to manage anything close to the portions you managed before the surgery. So, you still have the surgery as a tool to help. In some cases, being able to manage a little more than early post – op is a positive point because it means you can get a little more nutrition in. However it is important to recognise when you are feeling satisfied when eating (not full ). Stopping eating when satisfied rather than eating past this point will mean you are less likely to cause the stomach to stretch over time

So try not to worry – eat healthily, exercise regularly and continue with all of those good habits yu put in place to lose weight in the first place