Weight Loss Help for Joint Replacement Surgery

Picking a weight loss strategy can be challenging and each person may have a different strategy that works for them. A quick search for information on how to begin a weight loss journey can result in a lengthy deep dive into fad diets and misinformation.

It is easy to find hundreds of products and diet plans that promise to “help you lose all the weight you want fast and keep it off.” It is not nearly as easy to get those products to work as claimed and in a manner that promotes health and well-being. “Better health through weight loss” is often the claim. We are led to believe if we lose weight, all our health problems will disappear.

Approach Weight Loss with a Goal of Long-Term Health

You may have been advised to lose weight prior to joint replacement surgery to help relieve pressure on joints, decrease risk of surgical complications, and improve recovery after surgery. However, weight loss is only a small piece of a much bigger picture when we talk about improved surgical outcomes.

While you may be focused on losing weight to qualify for joint replacement surgery, your goal should focus far beyond your surgery date. By developing habits and behaviors that lead to long-term health, you can both lose weight for surgery and keep it off after.

This can be a hard mindset to adopt, especially when you are dealing with a painful joint that limits or restricts the healthy behaviors you may have previously enjoyed. Finding the energy to adopt new healthy behaviors is difficult when just getting through the day is a painful struggle. “When just walking becomes a chore, how am I supposed to focus on weight loss?” is a question we are often asked.

You may have struggled with the thought of walking the aisles at the grocery store, have had difficulty standing long enough to cook a meal, or found yourself mentally worn out by the thought of planning tomorrow’s meals because you are physically worn out dealing with your joint pain. These are very real challenges that require very real solutions just to get through the day, let alone adopt new behaviors and pursue better health.

Nutrition Counseling Can Help Guide Your Weight Loss

Seemingly everyone has a different and conflicting approach to bettering health, eating, and food behaviors. It is confusing when everywhere we turn someone is trying to sell us something and it is hard to know what resources to trust. When it comes to adopting eating habits that serve your health, there are multiple solutions for everyone. However, there is not one solution for everyone.

Fortunately, better health doesn’t always have to be as hard as we sometimes make it. Prioritizing your wellbeing, improving the way you feel and function, and being able to move forward in better health can all be accomplished regardless of circumstance. The everyday solutions that make these things possible can be challenging to discover.

Nutrition Counseling can help you:

• Adopt eating habits that serve your long-term health and your weight loss journey in preparing for surgery
• Make food and eating choices to live in better health
• Plan your daily eating
• Ensure the money you spend at the grocery store, the farmer's market, or your favorite local restaurant is serving your life in every way – including your taste buds!

Nutrition Counseling to Lose Weight for Joint Replacement Surgery at Sauk Prairie Healthcare

If you are struggling and want to learn more about the importance of nutrition and health as you prepare for joint replacement surgery, our dietitians would like to help. Have questions about weight loss strategies? We would love to assist in any way we can. Have questions about dietitians and what they do? You are not alone! Please contact our Nutrition Counseling team.