The Weight Loss Surgery and Aftercare Support Program

Why do you need support and monitoring after Bariatric Surgery?

Everyone’s goals after weight loss surgery are to be:

1. Healthy
2. Happy
3. Maintain this state of wellbeing at a lower weight long-term

Surgery produces physical changes to your body to lose weight. This includes reducing your portions sizes, but also altering the chemical messengers within our body to reduce hunger and fat deposits. There are a number of reasons you need more than the simple physical changes produced by surgery to achieve lasting health, happiness and a lower weight. These are listed below and generally follow the chronological steps you should take after surgery:

1. A need to ensure you adequately hydrate yourself

The changes are quite profound after surgery. This enables the significant weight loss that surgery can achieve stronger than diets, exercise or medications can achieve alone. These changes require you to adapt your eating and drinking habits. It is essential to take enough fluids in and Dr Le Page and your dietitian will highlight the importance of always having fluid with you to sip on. It will get easier of the weeks after surgery such that these steps tend to become standard habits for you. It is very useful to have a dedicated drink bottle such as the one below so you can keep an eye on how much you are drinking and you remember to take it with you wherever you go!

2. A need to ensure you adequately nourish yourself

There is a graded diet upgrade over the weeks after surgery to allow the stomach to heal itself. This means you need to ensure you take in the necessary nutrients which a normal diet usually provides for. To enable this your dietitian allocated to your care helps to determine your protein requirements and provides many options for tasty and well tolerated fluids and mashed-up foods. We also provide to you the most useful book for patients who have this surgery with many nutritious and tasty recipe ideas:

We also ensure you get started on your vitamin supplementation which will remain important for you to continue to take. We provide you with a supply of these after surgery to get you established on these:

3. An early check-up with your surgeon to monitor and ensure healing

This ensures there are no complications and checks on your progress, identifying if there are any questions or issues to discuss with your surgeon

4. A graded return to “normal” foods (but vastly reduced portions)

Healing is ongoing but after around 4 weeks you start to eat normal foods, of soft consistency initially. There are many great recipes designed for your comfort and health in mind!

5. A graded return to exercise

Exercise is critical to a healthy body and mind. It is likely for a long time you have not been participating as much as your body should be. As you lose weight, you should consciously go for walks during your healing, then increase that so you notice breathing deeply or break a sweat. I also recommend some dedicated activities, be it at the gym, with friends in a team sport or working with a personal trainer. Sometimes an exercise physiologist can work around any physical impediments you may have. This progressive attitude will enhance your weight loss and also tone your muscles.

6. An approach of active interest in your lifestyle habits and mindset

Everyone develops habits over time and it can be hard to break them. Surgery helps in two ways.

1. Seeing positive results gives you more inspiration to address habits, especially if you know the importance of doing this for the long-term goal of maintained substantial weight loss.
2. You will experience signals (feelings and sensations) that you may not have felt. These include reduced cravings, hunger and also fullness after very small meals. This gives you the opportunity to understand them and make sustained changes to your habits

We offer the majority of our patients added dedicated support to help you with this:

7. Psychological support

You will experience changes in your body that may impact your mind. You may have previously sought comfort in food which is now restricted. Or you food may have been masking some anxiety. Or you may have had impulse control when faced with food. Dr Le Page will maintain an oversight of your care and has relationships with specialised psychologists who he can engage for you if need be.

8. The satisfaction of knowing you have accomplished something very important for your health and wellbeing!

Dr Le Page’s affiliations to bariatric surgery support include:

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