Weight reduction surgery helps to put you on your path to a healthier lifestyle, but you can still tip into the realm of unhealthy if you don’t follow your doctor’s or nutritionist’s orders. Watching what you put into your body is very important because your blood pressure and cholesterol can dip toward unhealthy. Especially after weight reduction surgery, you should still be watching what you eat. By stepping up and undergoing bariatric surgery, you were ready to change your life around. Don’t take a step backward by letting yourself go again. Understand your body and how eating fatty foods and practicing unhealthy habits can contribute to poor overall health, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Understanding Your Body
Why do you need to think about high blood pressure or cholesterol if you’ve gone through bariatric surgery? No matter what stage of health you are in, you should consider the negative effect of what practicing unhealthy habits can have on your body.
Your Blood Pressure
What does it mean when you have high blood pressure? It means that your heart is working at an above normal level, and due to working harder it leaves your heart and arteries open to injury.
What does your blood pressure do? By keeping your blood pressure normal, you are able to reduce your chances of heart attack and stroke or developing heart and kidney failure. Having normal blood pressure will also provide your body with blood tissue rich in oxygen.
Your Cholesterol
There are two different types of cholesterol. The first kind, the so called “bad” kind, is called LDL and is the kind that leads to heart disease, stroke, and heart attacks. The second kind is HDL, and that’s the so called “good” cholesterol. HDL lowers your chances of heart disease, stroke, and heart attack. So, how are these differentiated? Making healthy decisions toward eating and drinking is what differentiates good from bad cholesterol. For instance, if you have a diet filled with red meat, sugars, and white flour, you’re likely to have higher cholesterol. If you have a diet filled with leafy greens, salmon, and you moderate your drinking, you’re likely to have a healthy cholesterol.
If you have high blood pressure or cholesterol, see a doctor to see how to fix it. If you are interested in bariatric surgery and want to learn more about controlling your weight, contact Weight Zen.
You are going to need to start exercising if you are going to undergo bariatric surgery or if you have already completed it. When you start on your road to weight reduction surgery you need to lose some weight before you can be accepted for the surgery. On the other hand, you also need to start exercising once you have completed your surgery. Going through bariatric surgery is a long process, one that might seem daunting, but you can do it. At Weight Zen, located in New York, we can provide more information about weight control and bariatric surgery. Come check us out and see if bariatric surgery is for you.
Fun Tip One: Competition
A little competition never hurt anyone. In fact, it helps people more than you think. A great way to begin losing weight for your surgery or after your surgery, is by competition with your friends. Go exercise with your friends and see how much better you become day after day. Start off slow with walking around the block with a friend or a group of friends and slowly work up to harder and harder activities. See how you and your friends last against each other and feel great doing it. You don’t have to be alone in your weight loss journey, encourage your friends to get healthy with you. As you become better in shape, you can also begin competing in different challenges such as how many miles you can do in a week or how many pushups you can do at once.
Fun Tip Two: Explore
Wherever you live I’m sure it’s gorgeous and fun. If you live in the country, go out and explore, if you live in the city, go check out a new part of it. No matter where you live, there’s some areas to explore. Check out a historic part of your city or go into the woods and try an easy nature trail. Wherever you go make sure you continuously move and remember to take in the people, view, or the beauty of being in nature. Walking is easy on your body and you can burn a few calories as you experience new things.
Set a goal to start exercising three times a week and see the changes in you. Combined with weight control you’ll feel like a new person.
It’s easy to gain weight. There are so many delicious foods that contribute to weight gain, such as sweets, sugary drinks, and complex carbohydrates. When you only have so much time in a day, it can be difficult to fit in exercise. Losing weight can be very difficult when you don’t have the time to eat correctly or exercise.
Weight Zen is a comprehensive weight loss facility located in New York that offers bariatric surgery and nutritional counseling to help you control your weight. There are many surgeries that will help you get back on track to being healthy again. With our help, you can start taking better care of yourself. You may wish to look into our weight loss surgeries to help you control your weight. Below are a few health issues complicated by being overweight.
Circulatory
Your circulatory system is how your blood and lymph travel through your body. This system includes the heart, lymph, blood, blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels and glands. If you don’t lose weight, you can suffer from blood clots, poor circulation, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart attack. When you gain weight, you put more pressure on your legs and knees as well, so there is swelling in those limbs. You are also more prone to lymph node cancers and peripheral artery disease. Peripheral artery disease is a condition that causes blood vessel reduction to move through the limbs. This means that poor circulation may cause pain in your limbs, specifically your legs. By not taking care of yourself, you may be facing poor circulation and pain in your limbs as well as possible heart problems.
Respiratory
The respiratory system consists of the organs that help your breath. The organs that are involved in the respiratory system are responsible for taking in the oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. When you are overweight, your respiratory system won’t work as well. You could develop asthma, sleep apnea, pulmonary hypertension, and pulmonary embolism. Sleep apnea is when your breathing stops and starts while you sleep. It’s very dangerous because you stop breathing. Pulmonary hypertension is when you have high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the heart. Lastly, pulmonary embolism is when your lungs become blocked due to a blood clot. When you are overweight or obese, your respiratory system doesn’t work as well, and you may face breathing problems.
Psychological
This one might be surprising; what does weight control have to do with psychological issues? If you are overweight or obese, you may be facing many psychological issues, such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Our culture plays a part in triggering low self-esteem and depression for people who are overweight or obese. When you live in a culture that tells you what beautiful is, it’s very hard to ignore it. Unfortunately, there’s a very low emphasis on being healthy in our society. Many people have eating disorders because they want to be beautiful and skinny, so they don’t think of the health repercussions. If you are at an unhealthy weight and think you are depressed or you suffer from anxiety, reach out to someone who can help. Developing eating habits that could be considered a disorder will not fix the problem. Get healthy the right way, by exercising and dieting or by talking to a doctor about weight loss surgery.
Reproductive
ReproductiveThis also might be a surprising health problem you might not think about. For women, being overweight can lead to polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, and irregular menstruation. It can also lead to ovarian, endometrial, cervical, and breast cancer. For men, being overweight can lead to prostate cancer, infertility, and erectile dysfunction. You may have read our article on PCOS earlier. To refresh: Polycystic ovarian cancer or PCOS can cause the hormones to become out of balance and for the body to produce more testosterone than it should. If you are overweight and are trying to conceive, it can be hard to do so if you have PCOS.
If you’re overweight and any of these conditions sound familiar, talk to a doctor or nutritionist about weight loss and weight reduction surgery. Call us today to begin changing your life.
If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, then you likely know that we spend a lot of time and dedication to helping patients before and after bariatric surgery in our New York office. We put a focus on helping you know your body and its needs. While this can be difficult to do at the beginning, with organization and discipline, it becomes easier.
With that in mind, we want to take a look at food diaries today, which can be a great tool after your bariatric surgery.
What Is A Food Journal?
Simply put, a food journaling is a way to keep track of what you eat. Food journals are recommended by many nutritionists for people who are struggling to lose weight. This helps you assess the amount of food you consume as well as when you’re consuming it and perhaps how you feel when eating. It’s a great way to count calories and take note of habits in your diet and lifestyle.
Understanding Eating Habits
As you begin to adjust to life after your weight loss surgery, it’s highly likely that you’ll take notice of many changes to your lifestyle and diet. Keeping a food journal is a great way to keep tabs on those pesky cravings, what you’ve eaten during the day, how often you’re eating and how you feel throughout the day.
When you keep a food journal, make sure you’re keeping track of the following:
- What did you eat?
- How much did you eat? (This is why measuring is so important.)
- When did you eat?
- Where did you eat?
- How did you feel while you were eating?
While this may appear trivial on the surface, having a food journal that keeps track of the above information on a daily basis is very beneficial in the long run.
Track Your Nutritional Needs
People often notice in their food journals that they’re eating too much of one food group and neglecting others. As you accumulate to food logs, you’ll be able to see trends and take note of any nutritional needs you should be meeting but aren’t. By working with our nutritionist Megan Wolf, you’ll be able to alter your diet as needed and tailor a plan that fits your exact needs.
Monitoring Your Health On A Daily Basis
We understand that your life can be different for a little while after your bariatric surgery. Being able to monitor your health on a daily basis is not only important to you, but to your doctor and nutritionist, too. If you notice issues with constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, abdominal pain, or indigestion, make sure you take note of it. Patterns of these types of issues may indicate certain foods that do not agree with you, or it could be a sign of a something that needs to be addressed further.
Contact Weight Zen Today For More Information
If you’re interested in bariatric surgery in New York and want to make sure that you get great, long lasting results, make sure you contact Dr. Rosen at Weight Zen to schedule a consultation and discuss your options. Our entire team looks forward to connecting with you and helping you meet your weight loss and health goals.
