Bariatric Support
Course Overview
Contents › Learn
A path from assessment to coaching — follow the tabs in order for the full ProgressTracks journey.
Understand where you are, why this matters, and what you want to build from here.
Explore why you chose or are considering bariatric surgery, what you hope will change, what surgery can and cannot do by itself, and the behavioral, emotional, relationship, and lifestyle factors that may matter most in your journey. This Foundation Journey provides meaningful value on its own while helping you choose what to explore next.
- Clarify your personal reasons for pursuing or continuing the bariatric journey.
- Identify realistic hopes, expectations, concerns, and questions.
- Explore current eating patterns, coping strategies, habits, self-image, and support.
- Recognize what surgery may change and what still requires ongoing personal development.
- Choose a practical next focus and create an initial Bariatric Growth Plan.
Identify whether you are preparing for surgery, recovering, building new habits, maintaining long-term progress, or recommitting after challenges.
- Pre-surgery
- Early recovery
- Post-surgery adjustment
- Long-term maintenance
- Recommitment
- Your current priorities
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Clarify the life, health, relationships, experiences, freedoms, and possibilities you hope this journey will support.
- Personal motivation
- Desired life
- Health goals
- Relationships
- Freedom and participation
- Meaning beyond a number on the scale
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Develop realistic expectations about how bariatric surgery can support change while beliefs, coping strategies, relationships, habits, and identity continue to require intentional attention.
- Tool versus complete solution
- Behavior change
- Emotional adjustment
- Habits
- Support
- Lifelong learning
Planned lesson · Coming soon
A changed body works best with a mind prepared for change.
Prepare psychologically and behaviorally for a major life transition by examining expectations, beliefs, fear, motivation, perfectionism, shame, and the mental patterns that influence long-term change.
- Develop realistic expectations about bariatric surgery and life afterward.
- Recognize unhelpful all-or-nothing thinking, perfectionism, and shame.
- Strengthen commitment beyond temporary motivation.
- Practice constructive self-talk and mental rehearsal.
- Build a support and preparation plan.
Explore hopes and assumptions about surgery, weight change, health, confidence, relationships, eating, and life after surgery.
- Realistic expectations
- Unrealistic expectations
- Health versus appearance
- Relationships
- Emotional adjustment
- Long-term work
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Recognize perfectionism, shame, harsh self-judgment, and the belief that one difficult choice means the entire plan has failed.
- Perfectionism
- All-or-nothing thinking
- Shame
- Self-talk
- Progress over perfection
- Returning quickly after a difficult choice
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Learn how values, planning, routines, support, and small actions can sustain progress when motivation is low.
- Motivation
- Commitment
- Values
- Planning
- Small actions
- Support
Planned lesson · Coming soon
You can respond more intentionally when you understand what is actually driving the urge to eat.
Learn to recognize the different experiences that can lead to eating and identify personal patterns involving physical hunger, cravings, emotions, habits, environment, stress, boredom, loneliness, rewards, and social situations.
- Differentiate physical hunger from cravings, habits, and emotional triggers.
- Identify common personal eating triggers.
- Recognize environmental and social influences.
- Understand what emotional eating may be attempting to accomplish.
- Create alternative responses to recurring triggers.
Explore physical hunger, cravings, emotional urges, habits, environmental cues, and social eating.
- Physical hunger
- Cravings
- Habit
- Emotion
- Environment
- Social cues
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Look for patterns involving stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, fatigue, conflict, celebration, reward, location, people, and routines.
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Loneliness
- Boredom
- Fatigue
- Conflict
- Reward
- Social triggers
Planned lesson · Coming soon
The goal is not to fear food — it is to relate to it with greater awareness and intention.
Develop more intentional eating behavior through mindfulness, awareness, planning, flexible thinking, and collaboration with your bariatric nutrition team.
- Practice mindful and intentional eating.
- Reduce shame-based thinking about food and eating.
- Follow individualized nutrition recommendations from qualified providers.
- Prepare for social situations, eating out, holidays, and travel.
- Recover constructively after difficult eating experiences.
Slow down and increase awareness of thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, choices, satisfaction, and your bariatric care plan during eating experiences.
- Slow down
- Pay attention
- Reduce distractions
- Notice internal experience
- Follow your care plan
- Reflect without judgment
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Challenge the idea that eating choices determine your worth and replace shame with responsibility, curiosity, and constructive adjustment.
- Food is not a moral score
- Self-worth
- Responsibility without shame
- Curiosity
- Learning
- Recommitment
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Recovery is not simply healing from surgery — it is learning how to live differently.
Adjust to the emotional, behavioral, relational, and practical realities of surgery and recovery while following individualized instructions from your bariatric medical team.
- Prepare emotionally for surgery and recovery.
- Adapt patiently to changing routines and eating experiences.
- Recognize non-scale progress.
- Use support effectively during recovery.
- Maintain appropriate medical and nutritional follow-up.
Anticipate emotional, practical, relationship, and routine changes surrounding surgery and early recovery.
- Expect change
- Ask for help
- Prepare your environment
- Plan communication
- Follow clinical instructions
- Be patient with recovery
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Recognize that appetite, eating, routines, energy, emotions, relationships, and expectations may all require adjustment.
- New routines
- Changing appetite
- Eating experiences
- Emotional adjustment
- Relationships
- Patience
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Expand your definition of progress to include health behaviors, energy, mobility, participation, confidence, relationships, consistency, and quality of life.
- Health behaviors
- Energy
- Mobility
- Participation
- Confidence
- Consistency
- Quality of life
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Long-term change becomes easier when healthy actions become part of everyday life.
Create practical systems that make health-supporting behaviors easier to repeat, including planning, hydration, movement, sleep, follow-up care, stress management, and other individualized recommendations from your care team.
- Translate health goals into repeatable daily behaviors.
- Use planning and environmental design to make supportive choices easier.
- Build consistent routines around clinician-directed nutrition and hydration.
- Support appropriate movement, sleep, stress management, and recovery.
- Recover quickly when routines are disrupted.
Create routines, reminders, preparation strategies, and environmental supports that reduce dependence on willpower.
- Routines
- Planning
- Reminders
- Environment
- Preparation
- Consistency
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Develop systems around the foundational behaviors recommended for you by your bariatric team.
- Nutrition plan
- Hydration
- Movement
- Sleep
- Medication and supplements as prescribed
- Appointments and follow-up
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Your body may change faster than your inner picture of yourself.
Explore how significant physical change can affect body image, identity, confidence, relationships, intimacy, clothing, attention from others, and the way you see yourself.
- Understand why body image may lag behind physical change.
- Separate personal worth from body weight and appearance.
- Navigate compliments, attention, loose skin, clothing, and other appearance-related experiences.
- Recognize changing relationship and identity dynamics.
- Develop a values-based sense of who you are becoming.
Explore why significant physical change may not immediately change how you see or experience yourself.
- Internal body image
- Old identity
- Adjustment takes time
- Mirror and clothing experiences
- Self-awareness
- Patience
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Develop a more stable sense of worth based on character, relationships, values, contribution, growth, and how you live rather than body size.
- Self-worth
- Identity
- Values
- Character
- Relationships
- Contribution
Planned lesson · Coming soon
If food helped you cope, lasting change requires additional ways to care for yourself.
Expand your coping toolbox so difficult emotions and life experiences do not automatically lead back to old eating patterns or other harmful behaviors.
- Recognize emotional states that commonly trigger old coping patterns.
- Develop multiple healthy coping options.
- Practice emotional regulation and stress-management skills.
- Strengthen relationships and willingness to seek support.
- Recognize when professional behavioral-health care is needed.
Explore whether eating has helped soothe, distract, reward, numb, celebrate, connect, avoid, or manage difficult experiences.
- Soothing
- Distraction
- Reward
- Numbing
- Celebration
- Connection
- Avoidance
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Develop multiple ways to respond to stress, anxiety, loneliness, anger, boredom, grief, fatigue, and difficult emotions.
- Emotional regulation
- Connection
- Mindfulness
- Movement
- Rest
- Journaling
- Meaningful activity
- Professional support
Planned lesson · Coming soon
A setback is information — not your identity and not the end of your journey.
Respond to plateaus, setbacks, returning habits, avoidance, or weight recurrence with curiosity, appropriate clinical follow-up, renewed support, and practical recommitment rather than shame.
- Recognize common forms of habit drift.
- Reduce shame and avoidance after setbacks.
- Identify changes that may have contributed to current difficulty.
- Reconnect with appropriate professional and social support.
- Rebuild progress through small, realistic recommitment steps.
Identify subtle changes in routines, eating patterns, coping, follow-up, planning, movement, sleep, or support that may signal a need for attention.
- Routine drift
- Eating-pattern changes
- Reduced follow-up
- Stress
- Avoidance
- Isolation
- Early awareness
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Approach weight recurrence or other difficult outcomes as reasons for compassionate assessment, medical follow-up, behavioral review, and renewed support rather than secrecy or self-condemnation.
- Avoid shame
- Return to follow-up
- Review contributing factors
- Medical evaluation when appropriate
- Behavioral support
- Recommitment
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Choose the smallest high-value action that helps restore direction instead of trying to fix everything in a single burst of effort.
- Choose one priority
- Small actions
- Consistency
- Track progress
- Use support
- Add complexity gradually
Planned lesson · Coming soon
The goal is not simply losing weight — it is building a life you know how to keep supporting.
Bring your learning together into a living plan for eating awareness, habits, coping, body image, relationships, professional support, follow-up care, recommitment, and the life you want bariatric treatment to help you build.
- Review progress and recognize meaningful changes beyond the scale.
- Clarify long-term values, priorities, supports, and behavioral commitments.
- Identify personal triggers and healthy coping strategies.
- Define warning signs that indicate a need for adjustment or professional support.
- Create practical 30-day, 90-day, and longer-term priorities.
- Complete and maintain a Personal Bariatric Success Blueprint.
Review behavioral, emotional, relationship, health, confidence, mobility, coping, and quality-of-life changes that deserve recognition.
- Non-scale victories
- Behavior change
- Coping
- Relationships
- Confidence
- Quality of life
- Lessons learned
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Identify the habits, relationships, professional care, coping strategies, environments, and routines that most strongly support you.
- Core habits
- Clinical follow-up
- Support
- Coping
- Environment
- Relationships
- Reflection
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Identify early signs of drift and decide in advance how you will respond, who you will contact, and which habits you will restart first.
- Warning signs
- Behavior drift
- Emotional warning signs
- Support contacts
- Clinical follow-up
- First reset actions
- DGBB recommitment focus
Planned lesson · Coming soon
Bring your why, habits, triggers, coping strategies, support team, clinical commitments, body-image priorities, reset plan, and future goals into one living roadmap.
- My why
- My desired life
- Eating insights
- Triggers
- Healthy coping
- Clinical commitments
- Nutrition-plan commitments
- Hydration
- Movement
- Sleep
- Support network
- Body image
- Relationships
- Warning signs
- Reset plan
- 30-day priorities
- 90-day goals
- One-year vision
Planned lesson · Coming soon
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