Changes for a Healthier Lifestyle

When trying to lose weight, many people make the mistake of making only temporary shifts in their behavior. Healthy behaviors will help you lose weight, but they are important to maintain even after you reach your weight loss goal.

A lifestyle change is a permanent shift in the way you act, perceive and engage in certain behaviors.

There are three primary forms of lifestyle changes you’ll be encouraged to make as you lose weight. They include:

• Dietary Changes
• Behavioral Changes
• Psychological Changes

Following weight loss surgery, you’ll be encouraged to make healthy changes in these areas of your lifestyle to encourage lasting weight loss.

What Defines your Lifestyle?

Your lifestyle refers to the habits and behaviors that you engage in regularly. This includes behavior like your activity level, the dietary choices you make, your sleeping habits and other day-to-day aspects of your life.

Every person’s lifestyle is slightly unique to them. It is influenced by your family, cultural behaviors and your career choices, as well as your mental and physical health. While sometimes seemingly inconsequential, your lifestyle choices can have a great influence on your personal health and well-being.

Forming Healthy Habits

It takes about 21 days to form a new habit. Following weight loss surgery, you’ll have plenty of time to adopt healthier habits as you approach your weight loss goal.

Even as you recover from surgery in the initial weeks after your operation you can start making small changes to certain behaviors to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Instead of just cutting out poor habits, make an effort to replace them with something healthy.

Here are some examples of healthy lifestyle changes that may help you lose weight:

• Remove needless tasks from your daily routine to make more time for exercise and relaxation
• Change your evening routine to get to sleep earlier and get about eight hours of sleep per night
• Plan your meals ahead of time and encourage your family members to eat healthier, too
• Take every opportunity to be more active by walking the dog, walking to run errands and spending free time at the park
• Drink water whenever you are thirsty instead of sugary juices

We all want to improve our unhealthy habits. With weight loss surgery many people find the help they need to finally make the permanent changes they want to. As you make an effort to become healthier, start tracking different habits and behaviors that may influence your weight loss efforts. Try keeping a journal to log your actions, and review what habits would benefit from change.