How To Restart Weight Loss After Gastric Bypass?

It is often challenging to restart weight loss after gastric bypass. The process requires a lot of time, energy, and commitment.

You can easily get irritated by not seeing the weighing machine needle not go down even after months of dieting and workout.

So how exactly can you restart weight loss after a gastric bypass to ensure you effectively trim down with no side effects?

What’s generally recommended is that you have a good diet plan, but is that enough? What more can you do to ensure you healthily lose weight? 

What Is Gastric Bypass Surgery? 

Gastric bypass surgery is a surgery that helps you to reduce your stomach size and reroute your small intestine so that the amount of food intake is limited. This helps to maintain weight and reduce your appetite.

This ensures that you feel full easily since your stomach is smaller. In the first two to three months, there are chances for you to lose about 5-15 lbs after the surgery.

You will have to keep a check on your calories as well as ensure you take in an adequate amount of food that is inclusive of all nutrients. There should be a good amount of protein intake to keep you energetic. 

You can qualify for gastric bypass surgery if you meet the following terms –

✅ You should be extremely obese with a Body Mass Index (BMI) above 40.

✅ Your BMI is between 38 and 39.5 but you suffer from a life-threatening illness due to obesity. 

The need for Gastric bypass surgery is to reduce the weight that could be a hindrance to normal life. You could have some troubling illnesses like heart-related illness, kidney failure, sleep apnea to name a few.

What Causes weight gain after the surgery?

Before going to methods and techniques of losing weight we need to understand what could be the possible factors that lead to a gain in weight even after the surgery.

✔️ Sometimes, it so happens that after the operation, there is a slight ineffectiveness in the rerouting of the small intestine. This leads to you consuming a higher amount of calories. This eventually means you end up becoming heavier.

✔️ There are also circumstances when the surgeon did a bad job at reducing the stomach size. This means you find it hard to limit the food intake.

✔️ You can also end up gaining weight when you find it hard to stick to a diet plan. It is really important that you can consciously be aware of the calorie you intake and you let out. If this is not balanced with an adequate diet you find it hard to lose weight.

✔️ Sometimes you could have genetic reasons that mean you find it hard to lose weight due to some disorder or other illnesses. 

Methods To Restart Weight Loss After Gastric Bypass Surgery

For most of you, it might not be easy. There are chances you will lose weight rapidly in the first three months. It could be difficult to maintain the same speed after the period.

There is never a constant straight line in regards to losing weight. It keeps fluctuating and hence does take time to eventually reach the desired weight. 

Here are some ways you can restart your weight loss after gastric bypass surgery.

Remember, you must be committed to a healthier lifestyle if any of the following has to work.

Calorie Budget 

• It is important to have a proper diet. What is more significant than a diet is to be aware of the number of calories you consume in a day. This is important so that you do not overeat and end up gaining weight. Merely jotting down the calories can be boring and eventually you will stop it. You need to have a benchmark that you can count it against. This means that you should fix an amount of calorie intake for a day and stick to that amount.
• According to expert medical professionals and dieticians, the average calorie is between 1200 and 1500. Another important factor in calorie budgeting is to ensure the amount you intake is also let out. This is so that you can maintain the balance. If you consume 1300 calories per day, you have to work to burn out all1300 calories. If you end up consuming 1300 calories but only work out to burn half of it, chances are you will gain weight.
• You can also bring in a variation throughout the week as you consume calories. This means that if you consume 800 calories today, you can consume 1300 tomorrow and a different amount the next day. This helps you to get used to different amounts and eventually can reduce the calorie intake.

Diet 

• Maintaining a healthy diet is another important technique. If you want to restart weight loss you should have a clear idea of what you eat and how much of it you eat. It is best to include all the nutrients in your diet. There is no need to cut out carbs entirely. If you do so, chances are you end up overeating after a point in time. 
• Go for healthier alternatives rather than processed protein shakes or powders. It is best you also intake more protein and cut down a little on carbs or processed fat. Ensure that you take in a small amount of food infrequent periods. Rather than going for three times a meal, it will be better if you eat five meals a day in small amounts. This helps your digestion to work smoothly and you also end up feeling fuller.
• It is also important to stop the consumption of processed and packed food as well as drinks. One of the primary reasons for easy weight gain is the junk food one consumes.

Workout and Gym Routines

• As much as you balance your diet it is also important that you keep your body active. Working out at home or going to a gym is a good option. Your exercise regime should be holistic and focusing on weight loss as well as muscle development. There is a need to improve your strength training and build lean muscle mass. This helps to accelerate the metabolism in your body.
• Your exercises should be intense. This means that you have to sweat your body to burn out the calories. Level up from walking to running and start swimming or cycling. This helps to improve your immune system as well as enhance the burning of calories. 

Lifestyle Changes

• This is a significant factor and something you will have to commit to even before the surgery. Life cannot go back to how it was entirely. You will have to bring about some healthy changes and patterns that help you to restart weight loss after the surgery. Lifestyle changes include your diet, workout routines as well as your sleep, social life, and daily habits. 
• It is highly suggested that you should have a regular sleep cycle. If you end up sleeping late there is a higher chance for you to increase your calorie intake as you end up eating more than what is necessary. 
• It is also advised to cut down on indulging highly in social life and parties. Often you end up eating junk foods or drinking alcohol which has a serious negative impact on weight loss. You might have higher chances of gaining weight in such cases. 
• You can also look into joining weight loss help groups. This way you will be able to find an emotional support group that eases the process of weight loss. As much as you work hard to physically keep yourself in the weight loss mode, it is also necessary you bring about a healthy environment around you. A support group is an ideal way for this process. You get an insight into various methods of weight loss and also effective ways to go about using different techniques that do not negatively affect your overall health. 

Pouch Reset

• This is a method advised mainly by doctors after you find yourself in a state of weight loss plateau. It is best to consult your doctor in such a scenario and ask how to go about losing weight. Most often a suggested method is the Gastric bypass pouch reset. It is a systematic method of enlarging or shrinking your pouch as per your need. This is to be strictly done under the consultation of a medical professional as it can otherwise lead to serious medical conditions.
• You will initially have to intensely cut down on your intake of food. Your diet will be so limited that your stomach starts shrinking.
• The next step is to follow a 10-day diet plan. This begins with you consuming only liquid meals for the first initial days and gradually transferring to more solid items as the day passes by. This helps you to tighten your stomach and make you feel full easily thus cutting down on your calorie intake

Your dietician might recommend changes to your diet to restart the weight loss. This can seem like a difficult and troublesome process, but if you stay committed to the change you will be able to lose weight easily.

Weight loss after surgery might require double the effort but it gets easier if you follow the above-mentioned techniques. These are easy to practice and become a lifestyle routine in no time.

The methods mentioned above will aid you to a super healthy life where you need not worry about any life-threatening illnesses or diseases.