Weight loss surgery is a crucial turning point in the lives of most patients. However, the journey to losing significant weight is not easy. There are food cravings, temptations of breaking the workout routine, and challenges of settling in a new body. In such circumstances, it is easy for patients to lose motivation and revert to old ways. This is where goal setting comes in. Setting goals after weight loss surgery is crucial. Goals are essentially pit stops that show how far you have come, be proud of the journey, and get motivated to keep going. Here is how you can set goals after bariatric surgery to stay healthy and happy.

Create Long-Term and Short-Term Goals

Goals help to create structure and prevent patients from falling back in their weight loss journey. But, it is important to sort those goals into long and short-term goals. Long-term goals can be becoming fitter, eating healthier, and so on. The long-term goals should be broken down into short-term actionable goals like going for an hour of exercise, keeping a food diary, and more. Both long-term and short-term goals are critical to making your journey after the bariatric surgery a success.

As Specific As You Can

After weight loss surgery, patients want to achieve everything, which is a sure fire way of achieving nothing. Creating a specific goal requires patients to understand their body and then set goals that they can achieve. For instance, “I want to keep losing weight” is not specific, but “I want to lose 2 pounds every week” is specific.

Can Be Measured

All the goals that patients set should be measurable so that they can celebrate when they succeed. For instance, patients can plan to lose a fixed number of pounds, trim off some inches from their body, reduce a certain amount of calories, cut down body fat, and more. Such measurable goals help in providing objective data, gamify the whole process and making it enjoyable, to help patients to stay motivated.

Find Support

Patients may not be completely clear on what goals they should set and how. In such cases, their bariatric surgeon, dietitian, friends, family, or a support group can help. Their valuable inputs will help bring perspective to their goal-setting process and help them optimize to realistically attainable goals.

Deadlines are Good

It is incredibly important for patients to create goals that are time-bound. Their weight loss and health goals should have a time-frame in which they should be attained. If they are unable to achieve some goals, they can either go back to the drawing board to correct it or consult their physician to understand if there is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.

Setting goals after weight loss surgery is a vital part of a patient’s weight loss journey. It helps them extract maximum benefit out of the bariatric surgery. Goals keep the patients motivated and encourage them to follow a healthy lifestyle.