What to do when you feel your balloon is not working for you

The early days following balloon placement can be tough. You may not be able to eat much at all, resulting in a quick initial weight loss. However, as your body adjusts to the balloon and initial symptoms tends to resolve, it is essential you learn to work with your balloon to optimise the results you achieve throughout your program.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that your balloon can only work as hard as you do. It is not set and forget. There are many things within your control that will help to amplify your results.

Often people tell us they don’t think their balloon is doing what it should be doing. We often find however that with a few simple tweaks we can get your balloon working better for you to achieve better results.

If you feel that you can eat too much, you are getting too hungry or you are not reducing your weight as you had expected, the following can help ensure that you are not unknowingly working against your balloon.

• Ensure you include at least three core meals each day.
• Include up to three snacks if you are physically hungry between your core meals. You may also need to add a snack if you eat too much or too quickly at the subsequent meal. Click here for snack ideas.
• Include protein with your meals, as this helps you feel satisfied more quickly and feel satisfied for longer.
  • At breakfast include eggs, yoghurt, milk, cheese, baked beans or nut pastes. Click here for our breakfast brainstorm.
  • At lunch and dinner, try to make half of your meal protein based. Include fish, chicken, meat, seafood, eggs, legumes or lentils.

Image courtesy of Allurion. 

• Load up on salads and vegetables to add fibre and volume to your meals. Just take care with stringy and leafy vegetables in the early post placement period.
• Include healthy fats as these also help you to stay satisfied for longer. Include small amounts of avocado, nuts and seeds into your day. Keep in mind however that healthy fats are also high in calories, so a good rule of thumb is to limit nuts and seeds to a maximum of one quarter of a cup per day.
• Focus most of your eating on solid foods. For example, you are going to feel satisfied sooner eating chicken and broccoli that you are when eating a chicken and broccoli soup.
• Eat until you feel satisfied or neutral. This is where you could eat more, but your physical hunger has gone. Avoid eating until full. For more on this concept, click here.
• Limit liquid calories including soft drinks, juices, flavoured milks and alcohol. Your balloon has a very hard time restricting these.
• Avoid grazing, where you nibble on small amounts of food over an extended period. You balloon will struggle to support you with this.
• Minimise slider foods. Slider foods are crunchy, soft or sloppy processed foods with little nutritional value. They are very easy to over-eat and they don’t keep you satisfied for long. Find out more about slider foods here.
• Move your body. Try to include regular exercise into your day. Walking, Pilates, yoga, YouTube workouts, the gym, dancing, swimming, biking……whatever you enjoy
• Reach out to us for help and support. Never feel ashamed or embarrassed if you are not getting the results you expected, we are here to help and support you.