Navigating Weight Regain after Bariatric Surgery

Physical vs head hunger - how to identify and respond to each type

Plant-based protein has gained popularity in recent years, driven by an increasing number of individuals adopting vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian diets. While plant-based protein offers several benefits, it also comes with considerable limitations.

Did you know you can still enjoy the festive season after bariatric surgery?

Most people look forward to the holiday season and everything it encompasses, so if this is your first Christmas after bariatric surgery, you don’t need to feel a sense of loss, or be feeling nervous about the impact it will have. To reduce any possible anxiety, we have put together these helpful hints and tips to get you through this time.

A few years ago, I became fascinated by pearl divers. They are interesting to me because they are able to dive down deep into the ocean. In fact, some pearl divers go up to 125 feet down into the depths. These deep divers find the largest, most valuable pearls.

Hi , I’m Belinda and I recently attended the retreat that came with my weight loss surgery package (I had my surgery in Wellington in August 2021). After moving to Canterbury earlier this year, I felt very lucky that I was able to attend the Christchurch retreat.

Being on retreat for 5 days, I got so much out of it, I loved every minute of it and thought it was such a valuable, life changing experience. The retreat was AMAZING. It gives people the time, space and tools to understand the past, accept themselves in the present and ensure continued success on their wellness journey in the future.

The gift of disappointment is to bring us into reality so we don't get stuck in the realm of how things might have been.

Whenever we do something in life with an expectation of how we’d like it to turn out, we risk experiencing disappointment. When things don’t go the way we had envisioned, we may feel a range of emotions from slightly let down to depressed or even angry.

December is a blur for most people. There’s enormous pressure: winding up work for the year, planning for next year, the end of the school year, finding childcare. Then there are all the events: in-laws, parents, brothers and sisters and their families, the Christmas work party.

Have you reflected on the year that has passed and set some goals for 2021? You may be thinking ‘no one ever reaches their New Year’s resolutions’, but research actually shows people are ten times more likely to reach their goals if they set them at the start of the year.

There is a universal nutrition principle that says ... "As food processing increases, nutrient density decreases".So why do we care about that? Because minimally-processed whole foods (such as grains, nuts, eggs, and fish) contain a vast selection of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients (plant nutrients), and zoonutrients (animal nutrients). And processed foods, whilst sometimes convenient and cheaper, do not.

‘If you give someone a fish, you feed them for the day. Teaching them to fish and you will feed them for their lifetime.’

Surprise, surprise, it’s another proverb from me this month. I’m sure whoever first said this never knew how right they were about life after weight loss surgery! Of all things, they mention the great quality protein of fish rather than those harder to tolerate options of steak, pork or chicken breast which many of you may battle with. Anyway, where am I going with all this?

Hair loss after bariatric surgery is very common and can be very stressful. Most patients want to achieve great weight loss results and still have thick hair.

Can you see that these three pictures are the same but different? What’s the same? What’s different? To state the obvious, this chap gets more complete as we go from the skeleton, to the skeleton with muscle, and finally to the skeleton with muscle, skin and clothing. Well, let’s say he’s dressed for the pool rather than the upcoming WLS Symposium if you catch my drift. My point today is about the difference in quality or completeness of proteins in your eating pattern – in other words the density of your proteins.

y nickname is ‘Save the Day Sam.’ I can hide in your locker at work, in your handbag/man-bag, or sleep in the glovebox of your car. I’m generally fine without needing refrigeration, and some might say another nickname is ‘Plain Jane’ as I’m quite boring. I’m okay with that because I’ve been planned to save the day when I need to, but sit quietly every other day.

As New Zealand is now in what we affectionately term Lockdown 2.0 - whether you are at Level 2 or Level 3 - most of us have said or written the words ”this time it will be different”.  I know I have!

This year we have talked about all manner of good things that you can do for yourself so I am back again this month with another - and this one is a doozy.  So much so that it is a key part of my 12 Days of You Project.

Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, Batman or The Joker, Peter Pan or Captain Hook – there’s ‘good’ and ‘evil’ out there everywhere. Some might say I’m even ‘evil’ in their weight loss journey because of the foods I encourage them to avoid! I hope not, especially as I write about artificial sweeteners today and ask you if they are ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in your journey?

My story started about five or so years ago. I feeling very depressed and the world was feeling a pretty dark place. I marched into my GP and said I need counselling, a green prescription, happy pills and a referral through to the hospital for weight loss surgery.

Isn’t life just great at throwing us curve balls to try and upset our routine? This latest one with Covid has sure been one right out of the bag. In saying that, it looks like the curve’s flattened for now and we can hopefully pick up life from where we left off before lockdown. I sincerely hope everyone’s doing okay and keeping well. I say that because any curve ball can be enough for giving the mind an inch and it taking a mile in terms of letting healthy habits slip – for example, with supplements…

I was having a think about what to write about for this month’s blog and newsletter when I received, in very quick succession, no less than five “help me” messages from people battling the terrible COVID-3.