Bariatric Support

Course Overview
Start with Your Personal Bariatric Journey whether you are preparing for surgery, recently post-operative, several years into your journey, or returning after a setback. Continue sequentially or choose the modules most relevant to your current needs. Use the DGBB Bariatric Success Challenge as your ongoing daily practice and revisit assessments and your Bariatric Success Blueprint as your needs change.

Learn

Work through each module and lesson at your own pace.

Module 3Understand Hunger, Cravings & Eating Triggers3 lessons planned

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.
Not Every Desire to Eat Is Hunger
LESSON

Explore physical hunger, cravings, emotional urges, habits, environmental cues, and social eating.

  • Physical hunger
  • Cravings
  • Habit
  • Emotion
  • Environment
  • Social cues

Planned lesson · Coming soon

Discover Your Eating Triggers
LESSON

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

Module 4Build a Healthier Relationship with Food3 lessons planned

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.
Practice Mindful Eating
LESSON

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

Move Away from Food Shame
LESSON

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

Module 7Body Image, Identity & Becoming You3 lessons planned

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.
When Your Body Changes Faster Than Your Self-Image
LESSON

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

Your Worth Is Bigger Than Your Weight
LESSON

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

Module 8Build Better Ways to Cope4 lessons planned

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.
What Did Food Help You Do?
LESSON

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

Build Your Healthy Coping Menu
LESSON

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

Module 9Plateaus, Setbacks, Weight Recurrence & Recommitment3 lessons planned

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.
Recognize Drift Before It Becomes a Crisis
LESSON

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

Weight Recurrence Is a Reason to Respond, Not Hide
LESSON

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

Rebuild One Behavior at a Time
LESSON

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

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