Is / was your nutritionist all that helpful?

[VDB 800]

My NUT is the best nutritionist/dietician I have ever met. She helped me with turning my head into one that is skilled at being a bariatric patient/eater. She not only gave tips, she practices what she preaches in terms of nutrition. I was dreading seeing her because all in the past were preachey snobs who did not like overweight people, and exuded distain and easy answers we have heard all of our lives. I was handed so many written diets over the years, but almost no real help. This NUT, at the Bariatric Clinic in Grand Junction CO (kay) really educated, gave recipes, did not give unrealistic advice or instructions, and was very patient with my ignorance....

Edited August 8, 2015 by John VDB

[drmeow 323]

@@ssflbelle, I think many (most?) surgeons' offices don't care much whether you lose weight before surgery or not but the 6 month thing is for the insurance companies only. Mine luckily only required 3 mos of "supervised" dieting, and all that means is that you weigh in with them monthly. I did have to meet with the NUT each time I weighed in, but I did not follow their paper diet guidelines as they are too high in carbs for me. I also had to be careful not to lose too much, b/c I was at BMI 39 and we weren't sure if I'd be approved, despite having high blood pressure. I lost about 5 lbs total and that was enough to show that I can follow a meal plan. Meanwhile I was diagnosed with sleep apnea so the BMI is moot anyway.

I'm more concerned with what kind of eating plan the NUT will give me for afterwards, as that's the one that counts. I have that (3 hour!) class coming up in a few weeks (surgery Sep 9)

[VDB 800]

@@ssflbelle, I think many (most?) surgeons' offices don't care much whether you lose weight before surgery or not but the 6 month thing is for the insurance companies only. Mine luckily only required 3 mos of "supervised" dieting, and all that means is that you weigh in with them monthly. I did have to meet with the NUT each time I weighed in, but I did not follow their paper diet guidelines as they are too high in carbs for me. I also had to be careful not to lose too much, b/c I was at BMI 39 and we weren't sure if I'd be approved, despite having high blood pressure. I lost about 5 lbs total and that was enough to show that I can follow a meal plan. Meanwhile I was diagnosed with sleep apnea so the BMI is moot anyway.

I'm more concerned with what kind of eating plan the NUT will give me for afterwards, as that's the one that counts. I have that (3 hour!) class coming up in a few weeks (surgery Sep 9)

Dr. Meow, why is the BMI moot with apnea? Not heard of that. Thanks John

[gigito2 52]

I'm not drmeow, but I believe the rationale is that with her high blood pressure, the sleep apnea adds a second co-morbidity, therefore the BMI requirement gets lowered to 35.

[Dub 9,922]

Looking back, I don't think my nutritionists (NUT) added all that much to my journey. Both of them offered very basic information that I learned in high school back in the dark ages and already knew from a lifetime of dieting.

I don't especially regret the 3-4 hours I've spent with them over the last year, but wish they'd offered more.

Plus, I see threads here from time to time that make me think some NUTs don't understand much about bariatric surgery or the differences in nutritional requirements for bypass patients and sleeved patients.

Your thoughts?

Mine has been very helpful thus far.

There really was a lot of basic stuff covered. Stuff that, like you said, was covered in school along the way.

Basic stuff.......the very basic stuff that I've neglected or ignored all these many years.

I'm looking forward to my next visit.

[MichiganChic 3,262]

Mine was/is really good. But she's an RD - registered dietician. I'm never sure what people mean when they say NUT as far as the person's actual credentials. Anyway, I'm an RN and a professional dieter, and I found it hard to imagine there is much I didn't know about dieting, but there was lots about diet with a sleeve that I didn't know.

She did a good job of reinforcing the Bariatric Eating rules. I don't think there is enough separation between sleeve an bypass education when it comes to Vitamins, but other than that, they do seem to understand and teach surgery specific needs.

[blondebomb 580]

seen a "NUT" once..with all the changes I had already done and relearned it was obvious she was behind and in old school mentality. never went back and it wasn't required to go back. what she showed me was standerized for all and still stuck on artificial items..

[Butterflyhigh 504]

Meh. That's how I feel about the level of helpful advise I've gotten from my nut. I have two and they offer conflicting advise sometimes.

Currently I am working on gaining a few pounds. The advise I got was...add bacon to everything, eat more fast food, and stop doing Yoga. Huh??? That's sucky advise IMO.

They are both really nice. I mean reeeeally nice. Just not as helpful as I thought they would be.

[NikkiDoc 312]

My 6 month pre-approval diet was with the dietician in my PCP's office. She knew nothing about bariatric patient's and IMO nothing about people with real metabolic issues such as PCOS. Lots of whole grains and fruits. Lots of no-fat food. That just is too much carbs for me. I went through the motions. She did provide me with some accountability so I lost weight the first 5 months and stayed the same for the 6th month.

My NUT through the surgeon was fine. She showed me how this program wanted to read nutritional labels. Since I was used to the Atkins approach of looking at carbs and they have us look at sugars per serving, Protein per serving and fat per serving. Beyond that she has just been there. I read their bariatric bible and I had a good handle on nutrition prior to this so it wasn't new.

[drmeow 323]

I'm not drmeow, but I believe the rationale is that with her high blood pressure, the sleep apnea adds a second co-morbidity, therefore the BMI requirement gets lowered to 35.

Yes, that's it. Once that was discovered i was no longer worried about it being covered by my insurance.

[Tiffyxox 12]

My nutrionist was not that great. I get better info from a personal trainer. Or reading a magazine.

[Lexigurl82 160]

My NUT is nice but wasn't all that informative. A lot of the info she told me could have been told to me by the surgeon or via online . Its a waste of my time and money but my insurance requires 3 visits with the NUT.

[Alex Brecher 10,512]

Tiffyxox, many WLS patients may share your experiences and opinions, but there may be additional considerations. One is that not everyone can afford a personal trainer, whereas some sort of nutritional counseling might be included as part of your WLS package. The other is that not every WLS patient will take the time to find, read, and pay attention to nutrition magazines. Just like some people use personal trainers to hold them accountable (and not necessarily teach them intricate exercises), you can use a nutritionist to make sure you learn the WLS diet properly, even if you “could” learn it on your own. Not everyone will.

Alexis Brown,

Having a surgeon give detailed diet info can be very expensive for the clinic, and drive up your costs. That’s because surgeons make way more than nutritionists. Having a surgeon spend say an hour talking about nutrition would be way more expensive than having a nutritionist talk to you for an hour.

That’s assuming the surgeon is qualified to teach nutrition (may not have had a single nutrition course ever) and interested in doing it (may not love nutrition…may love surgery and be interested in obesity)

[LessOfMe0503 157]

My NUT is pretty decent. In my one on one, she asked what my normal meals are, what worries I had about nutrition after surgery, and gave me suggestions. During the pre op class, she was rather scripted. One lady had tons of questions about could she change this and that and she kept saying, this is the suggested plan... but the 2 of them spent some time in the corner after class so maybe they were working through it.

I wonder if some programs have decisions made for them by someone e higher up. For example, I'm a teacher and many decisions that are made about education have nothing to do with children, child development or educational research- but rather someone way up the line made a decision and I have to work within those boundaries. I know it can't just be in education that that happens, so maybe it is happened to nutritionists as well?

[ProjectMe 909]

My nutritionist was awesome and a great help to me! I lost 60 pounds in the 6 months prior to surgery because of his workshops, no nonsense attitude and his wealth of knowledge about the body and nutrition. I wouldnt be where I am today without him.