Adapting to Bariatric Surgery

Adaptation means adjusting or getting used to a new situation, an environment, or surroundings. It can be difficult for the patient to adapt to their new life after bariatric surgery. Because you will now have a different body. Since the body and mind are a whole, you can adapt to your new body with your new mind. In this context, in this article, we will talk about the adaptation process of our patients after bariatric surgery. This adaptation process actually needs to be examined under three headings. First, how your brain will adapt to your new body, especially your stomach; second, how you will adapt to your new eating routine; and third, how you will adapt to your new social life.

Speaking of the first topic, our brain is the organ that controls our entire body, and if there is any change in our body, our brain directly perceives this change and gives us different reactions accordingly. So, let’s look at how it reacts after stomach surgery. During the surgery, a certain part of your stomach is removed, especially the excess part, and your eating routine now changes. While you used to eat a lot, you now eat very little, and the brain perceives a difference there. Sometimes our patients even ask me this question: “My weight loss has stopped, I am no longer losing weight, I am at a stable weight. Why?” Because some of our patients do not fully comply with their nutrition programs. There are actually many reasons for not being able to comply with the nutrition program, but generally, our patients eat less with the desire to lose more weight, and this rapid change is perceived by the brain as extreme famine, and the brain stops weight loss for the patient to survive. Afterwards, it can store even the smallest food consumed as fat. So, as you can see from here, your brain plays a significant role in adapting to your new stomach and new body. Under these conditions, since we are also the ones managing our brain, you should follow what your dietitian says about nutrition and not starve yourself. Starving yourself too much causes vitamin, protein, and mineral deficiencies and also affects the brain’s management of the body. We can understand your desire to lose weight quickly. You have tried hard to lose this weight so far and want to get rid of it as soon as possible. But you did not gain this weight all at once. You gained it gradually. For this reason, you need to lose it gradually.

Our second topic is how you will get used to your new eating routine. You used to eat however you wanted. You ate the way the people around you ate, or you ate more. But now you are entering different periods. First, you will enter the liquid phase and only consume liquid foods, then you move on to the puree phase, and then to the solid phase. In short, you are feeding like a baby. A baby first drinks breast milk, then eats formula, and then moves on to solid food. Since you now have a baby stomach, you need to proceed step by step in order not to tire your stomach. Looking at the periods, the liquid period especially scares you. Because this is a very different way of eating and the people around you do not have a liquid diet. When you go out to eat with them, the idea of only drinking soup does not appeal to you. You even ask yourself this question: “Will I not be able to eat or drink anything out with my friends anymore?” and this causes you to experience a bit of social isolation. You were already experiencing this situation before the surgery due to your weight; you felt uncomfortable eating and drinking in public, maybe you even wanted to eat alone at home. Now, after the surgery, there is no need for you to fall into such anxiety. You can keep up with this process by continuing to meet with your friends, integrating your liquid diet into your meetings with them, and carrying your protein powder with you if necessary. Rest assured, just purifying and resting your body from food for a short while will be very good for you too. Also, your weight loss in the first stage will be more visible thanks to the liquid period.

Coming to our third topic, this is the reflection of the deprivation you experience regarding food on your social life, and sometimes on your personal life. How can we exemplify this? Sometimes some patients come and consult on this issue after surgery: “Food used to occupy a huge place in my life, and that huge place is now empty, and I feel a huge void, a huge sense of lack, and this makes me depressive, it puts me in a sad mood.” Why? Perhaps you are entering a grieving process; you feel that you have lost something you love. Our Psychologist already asks this while doing the eating disorder test during pre-operative interviews: “Do you think food rules your life?” And most of our patients answer yes to this. When the thing that rules your life loses its rule after surgery, you also fall into that feeling of emptiness; you enter a grieving process as if your lover has left you. To avoid experiencing this, we need to completely change your mindset. What does this mean? Food has not left your life; only the foods that harm your health have left your life. You can still eat well, you can still eat food. Or was food the only thing that gave you happiness? Was food your only source of socialization? You can answer these questions in your own mind. And you can fill that void by thinking about what else makes you happy, what else socializes you.

In summary, our post-operative adaptation process can affect us biologically, personally, and socially. To cope with this, I recommend the following to our patients; you have a 12-month change process after surgery, 6 months for some, 12 months for others. You already take a photo of yourself every month; you want to track your changes. You should record these changes not only physically but also psychologically. How can you do this? You can buy a notebook, for example, take a picture of yourself every month, print it out, and write underneath it how you feel with that state in the photo, with that body? What thoughts cross your mind with that body? What kind of mind do you have psychologically now? By answering these questions, you will also examine your psychological change, and you can use this method in adapting to your new body and new life after surgery. In addition, communicating with people who have had surgery like you also provides you with social support. When you experience a problem, you can relax by seeing that you are not the only one experiencing it. You can support your social adaptation by doing social activities together and eating the same foods. If your own efforts do not work, you can apply to our clinic to receive psychological support. In this process, sometimes our social support networks may not work. In this case, not neglecting professional support will be an important step.