Most pre-surgical patients believe that they will have no problem with their eating after surgery and could not possibly regain any weight. "That would never happen to me." "I am going to such an extreme by having this surgery I will never go back to my old bad habits."

It is easy to think that way. Particularly with gastric bypass surgery, weight loss does seem easy for most people at first. The weight starts falling off quickly, and it feels effortless to follow the food and exercise regimens. What most patients do not know, however, is that this IS the easy part. They are in the "honeymoon" period, usually the first 12 to 24 months after bypass surgery. As the name implies, the honeymoon does end. Once it ends, most patients find they can eat the foods they could not eat before, and they can eat a lot more of them.

So what happens? How does weight re-gain occur? Many people don’t understand the magnitude of the changes that come with massive weight loss. Your body has changed, but the feelings that you always managed with food, are still there.

In addition, with the weight loss, you go from being invisible to visible. This change, although long-desired, can be very frightening. You are bombarded with new emotions, new situations, and experiences which are overwhelming.

Lacking a better means of dealing with these feelings, you may turn back to that old familiar coping tool-food. It’s easy to fall back into the old cycle of trying to "eat healthy", then getting a buildup of uncomfortable feelings and needing food to handle those feelings. The weight starts to creep back up, but this time there is added frustration, anger, and shame. Old behaviors return, including isolating, giving up exercise and other leisure activities, and eating impulsively without the planning that helped in the past. Soon, old emotional eating patterns such as night eating, grazing, and sneak eating can also return.

Our experience shows that these patterns are both CORRECTIBLE and PREVENTABLE. By understanding the patterns which typically emerge after weight loss surgery, learning to manage emotions and to cope with life in new ways, patients in the Transformations programs learn to stay a step ahead of weight regain. And if a relapse into old patterns does occur, they know exactly what to do to get back on track.

To learn more about our programs, please go to our programs page. Call us or email us today to start learning how to get control of your patterns!