Mainstream Diets after Surgery

Transcript:

If you’ve wondered about Keto, Intermittent Fasting, Noom, Weight Watchers, NutriSystem or the many other diets we hear about all the time, you are not alone. A very common question post-op patients have is if one of these diet plans can help them lose regain weight.

 

I do have a blog series covering all of these diets in more detail that I will link below this video but I still wanted to include this lesson when it comes to talking about losing regained weight. Let’s do a quick rundown of the mainstream diets today.

 

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Keto is a high fat diet with very low carbohydrate intake. It’s not recommended for bariatric surgery patients because of the emphasis is on fat instead of protein. Some patient may choose to do a bariatric version of the keto diet and decrease the fat content and increase the protein.

Intermittent Fasting is not a diet specifically but puts structure to the times you are eating and not eating during the day. Some patients find it helpful to have time limits on when to eat, however professionals are most concerned with meeting protein needs within the shortened eating times. It can also stir up black and white thinking so if you are prone to being really hard on yourself or have a history of binge eating disorder I would consult a dietitian and a therapist to work through an approach to eating times that support you best.

WW is the new name for Weight Watchers and continues to use a point system. Most recently that have a personalized point system based on a series of questions and a zero point food list. The point system does not take bariatric surgery into the equation and the zero point food list can be confusing when it allows foods that may fill you up without much protein.

Noom is an app that focuses on the mental side of eating and uses a volumetrics approach to eating. It puts food into color categories. I don’t recommend the color categories for bariatric patients as it might prioritize things that are filling but not protein based like having you eat more grapes but less chicken. Some find the app helpful while others find hidden fees or it wasn’t as personal as they thought.

Of course there are many other popular diets and a few more linked below. When someone asks about a new diet program, I have them consider a few questions:

 

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• What is it about this diet that seems exciting to you?
• Have you tried something like this in the past?
• Where did you hear about it?
• How does it differ or compliment bariatric recommendations?

 

One thing to keep in mind is that these programs can be very good at marketing with messages about how you’ll never have to worry about dieting again. What’s more helpful is looking past those messages and digging into the specifics.

You may find what seems exciting to you is the accountability aspect. WW provides amazing accountability when you go in once a week to weigh and say hello to others working their health goals. And that’s okay! Maybe you can use the pieces that seem most exciting to you even if you skip some of the program philosophies. You do want to take price and time into consideration if you only plan to use some of the features.

Have you tried something like this in the past? Sometimes patients realize they’ve done a similar plan before and it didn’t work as well as they thought. We can use past experience to consider if it really is a good fit or not.

Where did you hear about it? This can be helpful to consider how strongly you feel about trying the new program. Is your best friend doing it and really wanting you to join her and you think it would be great to do together? Or did you see it on a Facebook ad and don’t know too much about it from anyone else.

And above all how does it compare to the bariatric diet? Re-visit how it compares to the bariatric pillars and the boundaries we’ve discussed. Anytime you are thinking of signing up for a program or starting a new “diet” you want to put on your bariatric googles and see how it looks.

Why? At the end of the day, bariatric surgery is the MOST effective treatment to the disease of obesity and is an incredible tool. Research has proven that bariatric surgery yields more weight loss and keeping weight loss off longer than any other diet including Keto or Intermittent Fasting. And you still have that tool. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to lose regained weight, you can utilize what you have as a post-op patient as your secret weapon that you didn’t have before!