If you follow Phil, the founder, and creator of Dive Bar Nutrition on Instagram- you might have the perception that he is a super crazy, off-the-wall guy who loves making freaking delicious protein bars. But in the first 5 minutes of our conversation with him, we realized he is so much more than his Dive Bar persona. He is a highly intelligent, educated *professor* who has overcome it ALL to create the life he always knew he could live. Phil is not a bariatric patient, but his heart and soul liv...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 58 min•Season 5Ep. 46
Curious what life will be like after bariatric surgery? Jason and April recently sat down with their friend Katie @katie.vsg to hear how her life has changed after her VSG procedure! Katie is so open and honest about her experience, and this conversation is a continuation of her raw accounting of how life has changed after her procedure. One of the biggest "ah-ha" moments so far has been the impact feeling "normal" has had on her. We asked her some hard questions and she answered them with bruta...
May 02, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 5Ep. 46
We all go into bariatric surgery with expectations. But what most of us find soon after our procedures, what we expected is not what actually happens. We expect to lose 100 pounds in three months or we blissfully think that hunger will be a thing of the past. When these expectations turn into myths, we get discouraged. We instantly think that our tool has failed and that we have failed our tool. It is why we have a 50% chance of regaining me or all of our weight 2 years after surgery. HAVE NO FE...
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 5Ep. 45
The first step in change-making is actually committing to doing things differently. The second step requires that we use new and different tools to make the change happen and stick. Unfortunately, there is no "Home Depot" of mindset and headwork tools that we can make a quick stop in to pick up what we need . Enter East2West_WLS and Lora Grabow, a Licensed Master Social Worker who has dedicated her life to helping bariatric patients acquire and use the mindset and headwork tools needed to find l...
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 44
Meal prepping is one of the most dreaded elements of our bariatric recovery. So many of us struggle with meal planning and prep, even though it is a tool we can use to find long-term success after bariatric surgery. We might be riding high on the meal prep train for a week or two, then we fall off the tracks and into old habits and routines. Change is HARD, it feels awkward. But that is how you know change is happening. We sat down with Kathryn, the Bariatric Queen herself, to understand all of ...
Apr 21, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 4Ep. 43
Many of us have had people in our lives who have been our *ultimate* teachers. A person who inspires and uplifts our potential, who shows us new and exciting ways of doing things, a person who shows us how to show up in the world as our authentic selves. Some of us are fortunate enough to have these people in our own families. Many of us turn to public figures, people who put their talents to the world in hopes of helping others. Teri Turner is one such human. She is the captain of No Crumbs Lef...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Season 4Ep. 42
We are often asked by older members of our bariatric community if WLS is the right decision at mature ages. So we weight straight to an expert, Dr. Jor Cribbins, the Director of the Texas Center for Bariatrics and Advanced Surgery! Dr. Cribbibns has performed thousands of bariatric surgeries and works tirelessly to ensure his patients find success after their bariatric procedure. We wanted to know if -age- impacts a person's ability to undergo bariatric surgery and if it impacts their rate of su...
Apr 13, 2021•36 min•Season 4Ep. 41
Food is what got us to our high weight. And conversely, food is what will help us maintain a healthy weight if we reframe our thinking on food . Mind trip, we know. To help us navigate this food adventure, we sat down with Jana Wolff, the Registered Dietitian behind BariBox, the bariatric meal delivery company! This start-up ships perfectly portioned and macro-nutrient-packed meals, snacks, protein powders, and desserts straight to our homes making food one of the *least* complicated facets of o...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 40
To finding lasting success after weight loss surgery, we have to do two things: acknowledge the role food has played in our lives and reframe these relationships to serve our new lives. Easier said than done. We had the opportunity to sit down with Kedric Barrett, the amazing human behind the podcast Sleeved Believe the Hype- a show that chronicles the ups and downs of weight loss surgery in the most honest and real ways. Ked shared the role food played in his life before surgery and how has he ...
Apr 05, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Season 4Ep. 39
We are honored to have the privilege to sit down with Dr. Ortiz again to discuss the hottest topic on the block- metabolic wellness. So many of you were blown away by this new learning in Episode 33 that we had to sit down with him again and deep dive to better understanding what metabolic wellness is and why it should be our lifelong wellness goal. Dr. Ortiz is the world-renowned bariatric surgeon and Medical Director at the Obesity Control Center in Tijuana, Mexico! He is one of the pioneers o...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 38
We believe there are three "pillars" of bariatric success: movement, mindset, and metabolic wellness. Each is equally important and each requires different skills, tools, and approaches to incorporate into our daily lives before and after bariatric surgery. April and Jason can share their experience and recipes for success, but we are here to connect this community with the experts in their field so we can learn and grow with the BEST! We sat down with Mabel, the founder of Beyond the Sleeve Aca...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 37
Jason recently celebrated his ONE YEAR SURGERY AVVINVERSARY and we were so excited to reflect on what he has learned in that time. And believe if it or not, his wife Sarah had her first bariatric surgery appointment on that very same day! The three of us sat down to reflect on Jasons' year and better understand Sarah's upcoming procedure. We were able to better understand some of the ways Jason's life has changed, how his weight loss has impacted their relationship, and what Sarah is excited and...
Mar 22, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 36
If you guys could see the show notes we had prepared for this conversation...and then compare them to what we actually talked about...you would question why we spend so much time making show notes ;) This interview was TECTONIC. Jamie (TheSleevedDietitician) is a freaking magician when it comes to all things movement, mindset, and metabolic wellness. No matter where you are in the bariatric journey, you will leave this conversation with new insights, new understanding, and a few "ah-ha" moments....
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 4Ep. 34
Movement and mindset- two of the HARDEST things to master in life. But two of the most important things to master after bariatric surgery. We sat down with Gina @fat2fab_rny to understand how she has defined and refine both of these elements after her RNY procedure. She has discovered how mindset and action have helped her create her fitness goals, and how those goals allow her to live her life at a healthy weight. She is an athlete, a talented artist, and a thriving woman who has found a way to...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 4Ep. 34
Bariatric surgery can do more than help us live our life at a healthy weight, it is a tool we can utilize to find true, metabolic healthy. Dr. Ortiz is the world-renowned bariatric surgeon and Medical Director at the Obesity Control Center in Tijuana, Mexico! He is one of the pioneers of bariatric surgery and recognized as a leading authority in the field of bariatric medicine, playing a key role in the development of the Lap-Band, a type of bariatric surgery. He has gone on to pioneer a new typ...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 46 min•Season 3Ep. 33
Episode Warning: Suicide and suicide prevention is discussed in this episode. Over 250,000 people undergo some type of bariatric surgery each year and 40% of those people are men. But most of the public support for bariatric patients is geared towards women. We are here to change that because men face the same and similar "work" to live their lives at a healthy weight, and that work requires the support of this community. We sat down with Dalton who has lost over 150 pounds after undergoing gast...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Season 3Ep. 32
We have some *mind-blowing* news for you...even Certified Personal Trainers and fitness wizards have days where they don't feel like moving. Read that again. UNBELIEVABLE...but TRUE! Turns out feeling resistance to movement is not something that only a few people experience...it is something that everyone experiences! We sat down with Michaela Miller, the amazing human, bariatric patient/coach, and newly-minted NSAM CPT to talk about the movement mindset. We wanted to know what that mindset is, ...
Feb 17, 2021•1 hr 44 min•Season 3Ep. 31
The "all or nothing" mindset- a slippery slope of motivation. We when are committed to a cause, we want to give it out all, and we should. But when we don't meet our lofty goals, we can use this mindset as an excuse...an out...a reason to give up and stay stagnant. For many of us, we used this mindset as an "offramp" when the going got tough. The work of weight loss surgery is to shift away from this mindset and to be ok with starting where we are in the moment. We have to be ok with building fr...
Feb 10, 2021•1 hr 43 min•Season 3Ep. 30
Having an "all or nothing" mentality can work in some situations, but for many of us, we have used that mindset as an excuse to give up the ghost when the going gets tough. To find lasting success after bariatric surgery, we have to either change our mindset to be more flexible when setbacks happen. We sat down with Melissa Reese, the founder of Harbor Total Wellness to better understand what "wellness" means to someone immersed in the fitness industry and learn how to make "all or another" more...
Feb 08, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 3Ep. 29
We had the *unbelievable* opportunity to sit down with the one and only DEZ @wokeuplikedez and we are SHOOK. We wanted to know how she does it all- how does she grow an empire and STILL get in her workouts and hit her nutrition goals? Inquiring minds want to know ;) In this episode, we deep dive into the three M's: Motivation, Movement, and Management . It was such a great discussion about dedication and discipline to your goals and how emotional motivation will only get you so far. This episode...
Feb 03, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 28
Making the decision to have bariatric surgery is a road well traveled for many of us. We had been on the road for years, sometimes decades, before a defining moment pushed us to accept our reality; that bariatric surgery was going to be the "only" thing that would allow us to live our lives at a healthy weight. We recently sat down with Stephanie, the founder of the Bariatric Bookclub and co-founder of The Bariatric Society to talk about her bariatric "travels". We wanted to know how she came to...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 43 min•Season 3Ep. 27
We had the *unreal* opportunity to sit down with @katie.vsg a few days before her VSG procedure and then 5 weeks post-op. What an AMAZING and transformative conversation we had! We got to understand what she was going through before her procedure and then discuss how it all played out after. The conversation really landed on the word "hope"- and it beautifully describes what a *gift* bariatric surgery can be in our lives. If you don't follow Katie on Instagram, you are doing life wrong. Find her...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 55 min•Season 3Ep. 27
It is amazing what you can discover about your own story, your own journey, by listening to other people’s stories. And Andy Vargo’s story shed some insightful and meaningful understanding of our own bariatric journeys! Andy is a published author and motivational speaker who helps people own their awkwardness and utilize it as a kind of superpower. In this far-reaching episode, we dive into how we can overcome secrets, disqualifications, and the arrival fallacy to find lasting happiness and succ...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Season 3Ep. 26
What do you get when five women who have known each other for *decades* get together in a Zoom session? Some serious insight, big laughs, and a whole lot of love! April welcomed four of her closest girlfriends to conversate and reflect on her bariatric procedure. Some of the questions were tough and some "ah-ha" moments presented new insights and understanding about what it means to undergo and have a friend undergo bariatric surgery. If you are wondering how you can bring your girlfriends along...
Jan 18, 2021•1 hr 55 min•Season 3Ep. 26
We wanted to talk with Maddie about how she recreates her "old school" favorite recipes into bariatric-friendly versions, but we got a WHOLE lot more out of our conversation with her than just her kitchen secrets! Maddie has been supporting the bariatric community since her gastric bypass procedure in 2017 and has recently launched an amazing website that is filled with recipes for success- in and out of the kitchen! Her insights to finding happiness after bariatric surgery are priceless and we ...
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 3Ep. 25
No one makes it through without support- and we just so happen to have the "Rocky" of bariatric support, Wendy Rawlings! Wendy is a licensed mental health counselor in Washington State who specializes in bariatric recovery. She helps us dig into the big questions and helps us find solutions that allow us to live our lives at a healthy weight after weight loss surgery. We recently asked the community what questions they would ask Wendy if they could sit down with her and the community answered wi...
Jan 06, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 24
You have made the decision to *consider* bariatric surgery! WOOHOO! Now, how the heck do you prepare for something you have never done before? WE'VE GOT YOU! In Episode 4 of the E2W_WLS Struggle Bus, we walk you through some steps we recommend you take to prepare for your first surgical consultation with a bariatric surgeon. Brainstorming your "whys", worries, and concerns. Making a list of all of the things that you think will change after losing your excess weight. Questions you should ask the...
Jan 05, 2021•40 min•Season 99Ep. 4
Finding or creating time in our busy day for reflection does not take time away from us; it is using our time wisely. Reflection is necessary and needed for our bariatric recovery, yet it is most often missed or overlooked. By reflecting on what we have achieved, accomplished, and faced, we can identify the work ahead of us and create a plan to take on that work. In this episode, all 5 East2West_WLS crew members gathered to reflect by answering three big questions: What did we accomplish this ye...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 23
After bariatric surgery, our entire relationship with food changes. And many times, we are taken aback by just how much anything food-related changes...it can be downright daunting. Many of us find even our tastebuds change and our entire food palet is reformed. In this episode, we sit down with Kristin Willard, a certified bariatric dietitian to talk about all things FOOD! Kristin's approach is different- she wants us to focus on what we can eat, what we can add to our diets now that we are sta...
Dec 28, 2020•56 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Sometimes we get overwhelmed thinking about all of the things we have to do after weight loss surgery to find ourselves on the lighter side of life. Between water and macros, movement, and our mental health, it can feel like it is all just too much. We have to follow our eating plan 100% after weight loss surgery to lose and maintain our weight. Making no mistake, reaching our low weight was one of the most difficult and challenging things we have ever done, but we did not do it in one day and w...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Season 2Ep. 21
