Meet your long-term goals and make your post-surgery transition easier by developing these healthy habits before gastric sleeve.
GASTRIC SLEEVE AND FEAR OF FAILURE
As your surgery date nears, you’re probably filled with all kinds of emotions – excitement, nervousness, impatience, and even fear. In addition to worries about the surgery itself, chances are you’re feeling a little afraid of failure.
Fear that you’ll have this expensive and life altering surgery, and you still won’t meet your goals. Fear that you won’t lose the weight, or that you’ll lose initially and then gain it back. That you’ll remain stuck in an unhealthy and obsessive relationship with food.
Does that sound uncomfortably familiar? First of all, take a deep breath and have a moment of compassion for yourself. It’s completely normal for you to have these fears. After all, they probably track with your past experiences with dieting. It’s okay that you’re afraid to fail. Don’t get caught in secret shame about it.
THE KEY TO GASTRIC SLEEVE SUCCESS: MAKE HABITS BEFORE SURGERY
So what can you do instead of feeling shame and fear heading into surgery? Instead, you can focus on setting small, sustainable goals for yourself. You can focus on incremental habit change.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you need to perfect any of your lifestyle habits, especially your dietary ones, before surgery. But there are daily routines you can start implementing months before you enter the operating room. Creating these routines ahead of time will ease your transition into post-surgery life. Even more importantly, many of them will help protect your health in the weeks after surgery.
We’ll talk in a future post about dietary habits to begin changing before surgery. For now, let’s focus on daily routines and mental health.
LIFESTYLE HABITS TO MAKE BEFORE GASTRIC SLEEVE
1. Get Enough Sleep
It’s hard to overstate how important sleep is. Sleep impacts your body’s ability to regulate hormones, digest food, modulate your mood, control your hunger and fullness cues, exercise self control, and carry out every physical function. Give your body too little sleep, and your mental and physical health will fall apart. Add in recovery from surgery, and sleeplessness is a dangerous problem.
Everyone’s sleep needs are a bit different, but most people need 7-9 hours every single night. For me, it’s a whopping 9.5 hours!
If you struggle to fall or stay asleep, talk to your doctor about possible causes and remedies. Sleep apnea, hormone disruptions, bladder issues, anxiety, and adrenal dysfunction can all disrupt sleep.
I have always struggled to fall asleep, but in the past year, melatonin has been a game changer. I take half a gummy each night about an hour before bedtime, and, miracle of miracles, I actually get sleepy! Instead of lying awake for hours, I’m asleep within 20 minutes of turning out the lights. As always check with your doctor before taking a supplement like melatonin, especially long-term.
2. Move More
Now, if you’re currently living a sedentary lifestyle, it’s not necessary to jump directly into an intense exercise routine before surgery. As admirable as heavy-duty fitness programs are, they’re difficult to stick with in the long term, especially in a larger body.
Instead, focus on adding enjoyable movement into your day in small doses. Consider using a work break each day to take a 10 minute walk outside the building. Once you’re consistently doing that, try adding a second walk. Set a timer on your phone and get up and stretch once an hour.
If you’re feeling extra motivated, you can add in a simple weight lifting routine or following along with an online workout program. I especially recommend routines for plus sized bodies, like this yoga video. The movements will be tailored to larger bodies and a range of motion you’ll be comfortable with. As a result, you’ll be less likely to injure yourself or lose motivation because it’s too difficult.
But if you find yourself struggling to stick with the movement goal you set for yourself, find a way to scale it back and tie movement into your existing routine.
3. Develop a Skin Care Routine
Though creating a skin care routine is far less necessary to health than the other essentials on this list, I’ve chosen to include it since loose skin can end up as a stumbling block for bariatric surgery patients. If you worry that sagging skin will impact your confidence and motivation after surgery, check out these posts on gastric sleeve skin care for the face and body.
4. Take Your Vitamins
Before we go any further, a reminder: Don’t take supplements you don’t need! Some vitamins can become toxic when taken in excess. So see your doctor. Have your labwork done. Talk with your surgeon. Always follow the advice of your medical team.
With that in mind, here are a few vitamins that people, especially gastric sleeve patients, are commonly deficient in. I’ve included links to my preferred vitamin brands to use pre-surgery.
(note that this is a high dose Vitamin D that should be taken once a week or less, depending on your doctor’s instructions)
MENTAL HEALTH HABITS TO MAKE BEFORE GASTRIC SLEEVE
5. Form a Support Network
First and foremost, attend therapy if at all possible. It’s a sad truth that therapy is expensive and even a luxury for a lot of us. Qualified therapists are limited in number, often have wait lists, and typically charge $100-200 an hour. But in my experience, it’s worth every penny and all the hassle.
So look into what your health insurance covers and start looking for a preferred provider under your plan. Contact them ASAP in case they have a waitlist in place. Then reach out to counselors. I’ve found email especially helpful, since it gives you a chance to share an overview of your concerns, struggles, and goals. That helps the counselor in turn to know if they’ll be a good fit for your needs.
For those who can’t afford traditional counseling, look into an online service like Betterhelp.
Second, consider a gastric sleeve coach who can guide and assist you as you set goals and develop new habits. They can offer you tailored advice, a listening ear, and a motivation boost when you need it. If the cost of one-on-one coaching is outside your current budget, consider group coaching.
Third, seek out online community of like minded gastric sleeve patients. Facebook support groups offer a wealth of information and motivation. Best of all, they are filled with fellow patients who are eager to boost your morale when you’re feeling down. Just be aware that these groups can also be filled with diet police who might derail your journey toward body acceptance and food neutrality. For an intuitive eating focused online support group, check out Gastric Sleeve Glowup’s Facebook Group.
And finally, rely on trusted friends and family members. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to tell a lot of people about your surgery plans or history. In fact, unless you have stellar confidence and don’t mind critical comments, it can often be best to keep quiet about your surgery initially. But make sure you have at least 2-3 loved ones who will love and support you without judgment. Turn to them when times get tough.
Link to online therapy option. Link to one-on-one coaching
6. Develop a Mental Health Tool Belt
Unfortunately (but also fortunately) gastric sleeve surgery seriously limits a go-to calming strategy you’ve likely used unconsciously for years: emotional eating. As a result, developing other ways of managing difficult emotions is absolutely essential if you want to achieve your post-surgery goals.
So here are a few strategies to try: Use rhythmic movement like walking, dancing, or even rocking back and forth to calm the lower levels of your brain when you’re too stressed to focus. Learn to recognize and challenge cognitive distortions. Journal, practice gratitude, talk with friends, listen to your favorite music, or spend time in nature. Practice deep breathing and meditate (to get started, try a guided meditation like Calm).
Above all else, be kind to yourself.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR GASTRIC SLEEVE HABITS STICK
Starting a new habit feels easy. But sticking to that habit? Not so easy.
I’ve offered a few tips on habit change throughout this post, but there’s too much to discuss on that topic to cover well in a single blog post.
Over the past few years, I’ve put a lot of time, research, and energy into learning the science of sustainable habit change. If you’d like to learn my best tips, join me for my upcoming Secrets of Sustainable Habit Change course! Registration opens soon.
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