Most patients experience serious excitement after bariatric surgery. The pounds start coming off, energy gets boosted, and suddenly, it’s easier and more enjoyable to be physically active. With time, that initial weight loss slows, and for many patients, it just…stops. Then they are left several—or many—pounds short of their weight loss goal.
Does This Mean Surgery Failed?
Not at all. And the initial weight loss proves this. Instead, this is something called a weight loss plateau. After weight loss surgery in Tijuana, Mexico, almost all patients will reach this point. It’s frustrating, but it isn’t the end of the road. Just keep up your momentum, stick with diet progression stages after bariatric surgery, and try a few tricks that might jumpstart your weight loss efforts once more.
How to Break a Weight Loss Plateau
Cut Back on Carbs for a Bit
Low-carb diets have been extremely successful for many people. Whether that is due to creating a metabolic advantage like some claim or it just naturally leads to consuming fewer calories is up for debate. Either way, cutting back for a short while could kick your weight loss back into gear.
Switch Up Your Exercise
Post-op exercise is essential to getting good results. It can also be key to breaking through weight loss plateau. Try switching up your routine a bit. If you’ve been leaning more cardio, switch to more strength—or the opposite if that is the case for you. You can also increase the frequency or intensity to see if that is the jumpstart your body needs.
Crack Down on Tracking and Measuring
After you have been weighing all your portions and meticulously tracking things for months, it is easy to assume you can just eyeball things and be fine. Wrong. If you have fallen off the wagon with your tracking and measuring, now is the time to get back on there.
Get Mental Health Support
Anyone getting bariatric surgery should also be in therapy to help them restructure their relationship with food. However, here, we aren’t talking about that. Instead, we are talking about stress.
When you are stressed, your body increases the production of a hormone called cortisol. Also known as the stress hormone, cortisol tells your body to increase the amount of belly fat it is storing. This is true for all people but it tends to have a stronger effect in women. So, getting your stress under control or learning how to better cope with it can be part of how to break a plateau.
Be Mindful of What You Are Drinking
Overcoming weight loss plateau means looking at more than food and physical activity. For many people, it means changing what they drink.
This is something we see pretty often. A patient loses their initial weight, feels renewed confidence, and start going out more and enjoying themselves. They stick to their meal plans, but they start drinking more. Cocktails after work, Starbucks on lunch dates with the girls. And it all adds up, stopping weight loss or even reversing it. Track the calories you eat AND drink.
If you got weight loss surgery in Tijuana, Mexico and are hitting a plateau, don’t give up or convince yourself surgery didn’t work. Instead, find creative ways to approach the issue and break through it. And remember, the ALO Bariatrics team is here for you.
