The Role of Counseling in Bariatric Surgery Success

You know you’re ready to get bariatric surgery and take the next step on your weight loss journey. That’s great! Weight loss surgery is a powerful way to lose weight and keep it off so that you can get back to the beautiful, vibrant, active life that you deserve.

Bariatric surgery is a powerful tool to help you level the playing field in your battle against obesity, but it’s not a magical cure. You’ll need to adopt a new dietary and exercise plan after surgery. Losing weight can also bring up a number of psychological issues, and dealing with these issues is essential to helping you stay on track on your weight loss journey. For these reasons, we offer pre-op and post-op counseling in order to give you your best chance to lose the excess weight and keep it off.

Pre-Op Bariatric Surgery Counseling

A lot of patients wonder, “How can preoperative counseling prepare me for bariatric surgery?” There are a couple of answers to that question.

Before surgery, you’ll need to undergo a psychological evaluation. Why is psychological counseling important before bariatric surgery? This evaluation is designed to make sure that you’re ready for surgery and that you’re prepared for the work that comes after surgery. It’s also designed so that if you do have any psychological obstacles, you and our team both know about them going in so that we can work together to help you through them. As part of this evaluation, we’ll look at your existing relationship with food, your motivation, and any history of depression or other mental health issues related to your weight loss journey. This is not a reason not to undergo bariatric surgery; but because bariatric surgery can exacerbate depression early on in some patients, it’s very important that we work together so that you can get treatment and develop a support system if you have suffered from depression.

Before surgery, you’ll also meet with our dietitian and exercise specialist. These folks will work together with you to develop a dietary and exercise plan that you can follow after weight loss surgery in order to maximize your long-term health and weight loss.

Post-Op Bariatric Surgery Counseling

After surgery, it’s very important that you continue to meet with members of your bariatric team for counseling. This is important for a few reasons.

Dietary Changes

After surgery, your eating habits will change substantially. You won’t be able to snack or graze anymore. You’ll mostly drink water, and avoid “drinking your calories” by consuming drinks like soda or coffee or sweetened tea. You’ll eat smaller portions, and it will be important to avoid eating and drinking at the same time. You’ll have to limit or stop eating certain foods entirely, such as: sugary foods, carbohydrates, and processed foods.

These changes can be hard for some patients to keep up, no matter how motivated they feel in the beginning. Counseling around diet can help you to identify stuck points so that we can work through them together. We’ll also brainstorm with you how to handle these changes in ways that don’t upset the many wonderful parts of your life (for instance, we might talk about how you can still go out to a restaurant with your girlfriends, without breaking your new dietary plan).

Exercise Changes

After surgery, you’ll need to adopt a strict exercise plan in order to optimize weight loss through a healthy lifestyle. Like the dietary plan, this initially can be difficult for some patients, but does get easier with weight loss. How do you make time for exercise in your already busy schedule? How do you select the safest and most effective exercise plan to get back to health, without doing something that might injure you? How do you incentivize yourself to work out on days when you don’t have the motivation? In these bariatric surgery counseling sessions, we’ll help you to navigate these and other challenges that may come up.

Ongoing Support

As you start to lose substantial weight (many of our patients lose 100-150 pounds or even more), you might find that the weight loss brings up old psychological wounds. Some people gain weight as a protection mechanism (for example, some victims of sexual abuse gain weight as a subconscious protective mechanism against future abuse, because sexual attention doesn’t feel safe to them) and you’ll need to address those buried psychological wounds more directly. Maybe you ate partly in order to try to fill a hole inside of yourself, and as you let go of “comfort eating” you’ll have the wonderful opportunity to fill that hole in healthier ways. Maybe your weight loss is bringing up conflict with friends or family, and you need help navigating that.

At its core, bariatric surgery isn’t just about losing weight. It’s about healing pre-existing wounds so that you can step more fully into the radiant, beautiful, wonderful life that you so richly deserve to live. It’s not just about body transformation; it’s about life transformation. Post-bariatric surgery care can help you make the most of the wonderful opportunity that surgery represents.

What role does mental health support play in the long-term success of bariatric surgery patients? Research shows that attending counseling sessions after surgery can lead to better long-term health. One study of 81 patients who had undergone bariatric surgery found that those who attended counseling sessions had improved physical well-being compared to patients who did not. Another study of bariatric patients found that attending a cognitive behavioral therapy program after surgery “led to improvements in reported emotional eating, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms.” Counseling can also help if you’re struggling with weight regain. Another study reports that patients in a therapy program who had suffered from weight regain “experienced a significant reduction in weight and improvement in depressive symptoms, grazing patterns, and subjective binge eating episodes.” 

Bariatric surgery psychologist Kelli Friedman of the Duke Center for Metabolic and Weight Loss Surgery sums up why these interventions can be so helpful. “As psychologists, we help identify barriers, come up with strategies, problem solve, and assist our patients in figuring out how they are going to implement some of the needed changes given their individual life circumstances.” It is important to us that your physical and mental health after bariatric surgery is as good as it can be, and counseling can help you get there.

Support Groups

We also recommend that you join one of our bariatric surgery support groups. Life after surgery can sometimes feel lonely, but it can also feel vibrant and full of connection and community. Like counseling, bariatric surgery support groups can help you to develop a strong sense of community and meet loving friends who will walk this journey with you.

Taking the Next Step On Your Weight Loss Journey

You deserve to live an incredible life full of new beginnings. Bariatric surgery can help you get there. But it’s not a stand-alone cure, and pre-op and post-op counseling sessions can support you in your goal of living your best life. At the BMCC we care about you deeply and want to make sure that you are set up for long-term success.

Many of our patients report that the decision to undergo bariatric surgery was one of the best decisions they ever made.

“The best decision I have ever made was to have this surgery. Not only did I improve my health, I have my life back again with my family.”—Georgette Camacho, duodenal switch patient.

If you’re suffering, don’t wait. Contact our friendly Denver office staff today.