Preparing for Surgery Through Nutrition
August 4, 2014Nutrition is Key for Pre-ops!
There’s a difference between feeding yourself and nourishing yourself. At times, the more you feed yourself, the less nourished you actually become. There are a lot of moving pieces to the puzzle such as your lifestyle, stress level, and your sleeping patterns. But, in order to prepare for surgery,nutrition is key.
For those of you who are considering surgery and in the beginning stages of research, let’s first take a look at who is a good candidate for bariatric surgery. Those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher or people with a 35 to 39.9 BMI with serious weight-related health problem, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, severe sleep apnea, and other comorbidities are perfect candidates.
Losing Weight Before Surgery
Why is it that patients should wait a week to a month after their initial consultation to have surgery? (This applies mostly to patients paying by cash as the insurance process can take much longer!) Working with a nutritionist to establish a diet is extremely important pre-surgery and is most often required. The goal of your nutrition before surgery is to reduce your liver size, reduce visceral fat, promote the best recovery, speed up healing, and build healthy tissue. Consequently, good nutrition before surgery equals workable tissue for the surgeons to work with.
If you are planning to start a diet before your surgery, make sure to consult a nutritionist. They are familiar with bariatric procedures and can provide an optimal diet to fulfill your nutritional needs. You want to set yourself up for success from the very beginning and the best way to do so is through a nutritionist that will be there pre and post-op. If you don’t eat correctly your tissue may not have the right nutritional properties therefore will not heal the same.
Risks, Complications, and Tips
What happens if you do not follow a correct nutritional plan before surgery? Most BMI>40 individuals have enlarged livers and some degree of fatty liver disease. Since the liver is large, thick, and heavy it becomes very challenging for surgeons when performing a bariatric surgery laparoscopically to lift it up and get access to the stomach. This greatly increases the risk of complications during surgery, which can lead to conversion of a laparoscopic surgery to a more risky open surgery, resulting in larger abdominal scaring, longer recovery, and increased risks, or cancellation of the procedure altogether. Spending even a few weeks undergoing weight loss, however, can reverse this process, greatly lowering operative risk. This is why your surgeon will probably require you to lose weight (20-30 pounds is common) before surgery.
Here are some of the ways we work with patients to help them with this:
- Prescribe a high-protein and low-carb diet: In the form of protein shakes and vegetables, this diet is implemented not only to lose weight but to reduce the livers size.
- Patients should take vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants: People that engage in extreme weight loss will typically look as if they aged quite a bit, antioxidants will ease the aging process.
- Probiotic vitamins are also recommended: Probiotics improve immune system response and prevents possible infections
Remember to get informed before committing to a surgeon and make sure you have nutritional support along the way. Once you reach your target goal, the journey is not over yet, it’s a lifestyle choice not a diet.
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lucía Chávez, Chief Nutritionist at VIDA Wellness of CosMed graduated with honors and received the university medal of merit from Universidad Iberoamericana. Lucía teaches Nutrition Physiology at Universidad Iberoamericana, is a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly ADA), Dietitians Association of Integrative Medicine and Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine.Read more articles by Lucía Chávez! |
