If you haven’t ready part one, ‘Bariatric Surgery: No Easy Way Out’ and part two, ‘Bariatric Surgery, the Hard Choice’, you certainly want to take the time to read these great articles addressing the opinion that weight loss surgery is for undisciplined and lazy people looking for an easy way.
Part Three: Once Bariatric Surgery is in the Rear View
In order to properly debunk society’s opinion that weight loss surgery is merely an ‘easy way out’ without effort or discipline, it seems only right to discuss those first days following the Bariatric procedure. That is because, regardless of the weight loss procedure you have undergone, there will be pain. Pain… a feeling that is never pleasant and surgery, a word that is synonymous with the word pain.
While the pain is quite manageable and medication is often part of the healing process, this is a surgical procedure that requires three small incisions for the laparoscopic tool. Depending upon the Bariatric procedure chosen by your Bariatric team, other incisions and alterations will also made inside the body. Needless to say, while recovering from weight loss surgery, you will not consider this procedure to be the easier way to lose weight.
Don’t let a little post-surgery pain scare you off, though.
Post Bariatric Surgery: Dieting Days Far from Over
By this time, the average Bariatric patient has lost about twenty pounds already from the difficult pre-op liquid protein shake diet and weight loss surgery. Before leaving the hospital, the first two weeks after surgery, patients are now instructed to follow a Clear Liquid Diet, this one even more difficult than the pre-op diet. Bouillon soup, Jello, popsicles, and eventually G2, the sugar free form of Gatorade, are your sustenance for about one week.
By the end of the second week, protein shakes are once again part of the post-op Bariatric diet. This is the second stage of dieting after weight loss surgery, called the Full Liquid Diet. For most Bariatric patients, doctors give a green light for the Pureed Diet in weeks three and four. The pureed diet is not pleasant but is very necessary as the stomach heals and the patient learns new limits.
In months two and three after weight loss surgery, most Bariatric surgeons will graduate patients from pureed options to the next step in dieting, the Soft Food Diet. Finally, the patient is allowed to consume real food again, even though it must be soft and easy to swallow. Lastly is the Stabilization Diet, or the diet that models a lifestyle change, beginning about four months after Bariatric surgery.
Post-Op Dieting Guidelines vary according to Bariatric Procedures
Just as every person faces different health issues caused by obesity, your Bariatric doctor may have special instructions for the days that follow weight loss surgery. Regardless of the weight plan he has set in motion, you can expect to work hard and sacrifice much while restoring your health and fighting against the effects of obesity.
Those who say that Bariatric surgery is an ‘easy way out’ and consider obese patients to be quitters should try to follow the above mentioned diets and see how easy weight loss surgery truly is. The next and final article in this series is a supporting piece for those individuals who know that, ‘Weight Loss is for Losers’.
