Regaining Weight after Surgery

While bariatric surgery provides an excellent tool to help you lose weight, training yourself to eat healthier food in lower quantities can be a challenge. In the first few months after surgery, most patients lose a significant amount of weight, but as time goes on their weight will occasionally plateau and fluctuate, sometimes significantly. Throughout the weight loss process, there may be days, weeks, or even months of stable weight and other months where your weight fluctuates. During these times of uncertainty, we are at our weakest and it is important that you do not get discouraged. Discouragement may lead to emotional eating and giving up, which will only make the problem worse.

Also, remember that you have plenty of support resources available to you. Dr. Duncan and the post-surgery support team here at Peachtree Surgical & Bariatrics can help you find out why you’re gaining the weight. We can show you how to reverse course and start losing weight again. Using support groups, encouragement from family and friends, as well as online resources can also help you develop a plan to continue losing weight in a measured and safe manner. Losing weight requires a dedication to a modified lifestyle – including a new diet and exercise regimen, but it also requires variety, tenacity and perseverance.

Creating realistic expectations for your weight loss will reduce the risk of emotional eating and other destructive behaviors. It also important to remember that after bariatric surgery and especially gastric bypass, the results of emotional over-eating can be risky. In extreme cases, it may require additional surgery to fix a stretched gastric pouch. Some stretching is perfectly normal, however if the pouch is over-stretched, the positive effects of the weight loss surgery procedure will be nullified. It is therefore very important to determine the causes of the weight as soon as possible and take steps to get back onto a normal diet and exercise regime that allows you to maintain or continue losing weight.

If you are gaining weight temporarily, there may be a quick fix to the problem. Only in rare cases is the weight gain of concern. Even then, we have procedures in place to address it swiftly.