What's the Fuss about Day 6?

My goodness? What is this "Day 6"?

What is the fuss all about.

Read here

Then join us! We are in this for life and so are you.

Day 6: Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test

Kaye's follow-up to the 5 Day Pouch Test
-220 Pages
-66 All-New Recipes
-Inspiration & Encouragement
-Knowledge & Empowerment

On Sale $25.95

Order Today & Save More


*Enter Coupon Code 2010STORM and save $4.00 more at checkout!
Coupon Expires 1/21/2010

Day 6: Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test is Kaye Bailey's follow-up to her powerful 5 Day Pouch Test Owner's Manual, which has helped countelss thousands get back on track with their weight loss surgery. In Ms. Bailey's generous spirit of compassion and belief in others she shares her secrets for working with the surgical weight loss tool, not against it, to achieve optimum success and long-term weight maintenance. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. Just simple common sense delivered in the powerful "you can do this" style we have come to expect from Ms. Bailey.

In Day 6: Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test Ms. Bailey invites readers to consider their relationship with the word diet as she introduces a revolutionary new concept for nurturing a strong and reasonable respect for food.

Day 6 is the way-of-life weight loss surgery patients will follow if they want to control their weight for the rest of their lives.

"This is the book I wish I had read before having surgery in the first place - it would have made all the difference in my success or failure."
-- Alyce Pittaway, Laparoscopic GastricBypass 2002

SKU#5662212

Connections: Support Matters with Weight Loss Surgery

Weight loss is never easy - with or without weight loss surgery - and it is more difficult when we try to go it alone. The Internet has provided us numerous opportunities to connect with others who are traveling this journey of weight loss surgery. Here are a few of my favorite destinations for support, encouragement, understanding and empowerment! I'll see you there!



LivingAfterWLS Neighborhood
Now over 8,000 members strong the LivingAfterWLS Neighborhood -- Our Safe Haven Circle of Friends -- is your premier online destination for support, friendship, encouragement, understanding and empowerment with weight loss surgery. We address all surgeries including gastric bypass, gastric banding and gastric sleeve. Our members include post-ops of 20+ years and pre-ops looking into surgery and newbies in the wonderful first year of discovery. You belong here - we have room for you. Be sure and check out these hot spots in the Neighborhood:

You Have Arrived Alumni Club: Connect with other weight loss surgery patients who are at the same stage as you. Simply look for the year of your surgery and join the conversation in the "Class of" sub-forum. All surgical procedures can participate in each "Class of" sub-forum. Let's share our collective experience and support one another who are near the same stage in the journey.

Accountability Challenges: Do you do better when held accountable? We all do! This is a great place to step-up to the plate and take accountability into your own hands. Seasonal accountability challenges - a place where we account to one another for the goals we set for ourselves. Also, check out the Day 6 Accountability conversation and stay on track for better health and a better you!

Community Kitchen: Share recipes, cooking techniques and ask questions. We are all in the kitchen together and this is a great place to learn, socialize and find out what's for dinner tonight!

Fun Friday: Just for FUN! LivingAfterWLS's Favorite weekly game where you have a chance to share something about yourself, not necessarily weight loss surgery related, and win fabulous prizes! Real life prizes sent in the mail taking the mundane out of the mailbox. DarlingGwenda is our Hostesses and each week she entices us to share a little tidbit in this get-to-know-you game! Join us!

Facebook offers us a chance to quickly check in with one another while enjoying a broader environment of social networking. We have three groups there to support our LivingAfterWLS way of life -- Join us! And "Friend Me" Kaye Bailey Facebook Page

LivingAfterWLS Neighbors: An outreach social network for Kaye Bailey's LivingAfterWLS community and Neighborhood. Please join us to share your surgical weight loss surgery experience, celebrate your health, support others and rejoice in living. This group was created by Kaye Bailey and officially sanctioned by LivingAfterWLS, LLC.

5 Day Pouch Test: An outreach social network for Kaye Bailey's widely successful 5 Day Pouch Test (copyrighted and owned by LivingAfterWLS, LLC.) Please join us to share your 5 Day Pouch Test experience, celebrate your health, support others and rejoice in living. This group was created by Kaye Bailey and officially sanctioned by LivingAfterWLS, LLC.

Day 6: Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test - The official group! Pursuing health, wellness, & weight control beyond Kaye Bailey's 5 Day Pouch Test. Helpful hints, recipes, connections, living. Stay on track with your weight loss surgery tool. You Can Do This!

Four Things You Must Know about Weight Regain After WLS

This article was published in the January 10, 2010 You Have Arrived Newsletter (subscribe here for free) and has generated much conversation in the LivingAfterWLS Neighborhood. Here is the full article and Link Here to follow the conversation and join us!

Weight Gain After Weight Loss Surgery:
Four Things You MUST Know
by Kaye Bailey Copyright 2010 - All Rights Reserved

I was born with the disease obesity and by the time I was out of college it had advanced to morbid obesity. At age 33 my disease was treated with laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery which affected a loss of weight that put my disease, morbid obesity, in remission. Three years later I suffered a relapse of my disease with a weight gain of 20 pounds. Through dietary and lifestyle compliance, much like a person with heart disease who suffers a relapse, I was able to put my disease, obesity, back in remission. I will always have the disease of morbid obesity and am fortunate that I was able, at a young age, to be treated with the best medically available option.

The Facts:

* Obesity is a disease.
* Weight loss puts the disease in remission.
* Weight gain puts the disease in relapse.
* Like most diseases, victims of obesity are responsible to make dietary and lifestyle changes that work with medical treatment to keep our disease in remission.
* Like most diseases, relapses occur, obesity manifests relapse in weight gain.
* We are not the disease, we have the disease.

My Four Truths:

Regain Is Likely: It is generally believed that 80% of people who undergo WLS will experience relapse (weight gain) of 10-30 pounds depending upon initial weight loss. It is further believed that 20% will relapse to their former weight and possibly gain more as the disease of morbid obesity advances. This relapse can be the result of failed gastric surgery (the surgery was improperly performed); a non-compliant patient who does not evolve their eating and exercise habits; the active intestine becoming more efficient at absorbing calories; and potential stomach pouch stretch. Statistics are not available indicating which patient regains weight for what reason.

Dr. Anita Courcoulas, chief of minimally invasive bariatric and general surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said, "Regaining weight down the road is a common phenomenon for weight loss patients. These patients need to be educated and prepared for it if it happens."

2. 100% Conviction: It is my experience that 100% of patients who take to the operating table for the treatment of their disease say, "I'm not going to be one of "those people" who gain weight after surgery." You can bet the farm I said that - and imagine my embarrassment and shame when I did in fact become one of "those people." At the time I didn't understand my disease had relapsed, in part because I had loosened my newly evolved eating and exercise habits, but also because my body has a disease that wants to store excess fat. I thought I gained weight because I was a failure at surgery . Just one more diet I couldn't get right.

I am not alone in my feelings of failure over weight regain. Dr. Courcoulas said, "These are people who feel that they have failed at everything they tried in their lives. If they feel that they are failing surgery, they're embarrassed and they don't want to come back for help." How sad for us. When a cancer patient suffers a relapse do they take it as a personal failure? I sure hope not.

Popular media perpetuates the belief that weight gain equals failure. WLS celebrities are splashed across mainstream media and tabloids alike for weight regain. But the celebrity with cancer who suffers relapse? Charity benefits are hosted bearing their name and their bravery is lauded. With a relapse in obesity the celebrity becomes the brunt of jokes for late night comedians. No wonder we don't want to become one of "those people" but statistics are not on our side
3. I Am Not Obese. Since kindergarten the word "fat" defined me and I actually thought that was who I was because "You are fat" and "I am fat" were constant words in my world. By about age 40 I finally figured out that I am not fat. I have obesity, a disease. Have you heard a heart attack patient say, "I am heart disease" or a leukemia patient say, "I am cancer"? We are not the disease! We have a disease that is part of the whole person that makes us the wonderfully unique and powerful person we are. I must actively engage in mindful thinking daily to assure myself the things that I am that are not about my disease. The old self-loathing talk is much easier to indulge, we are so much more comfortable with it than self-kindness. But please join me in stepping out of your comfort zone and celebrating all the brilliant wonderful things that define you. You are not these disease. You are lovely spectacular beautiful you.
4. Relapse to Remission: Just like other disease, obesity relapse can be put into remission. There is hope! As noted above there are (at least) four reasons for relapse including: failed gastric surgery (the surgery was improperly performed); a non-compliant patient who does not evolve their eating and exercise habits; the active intestine becoming more efficient at absorbing calories; and potential stomach pouch stretch. Keeping in mind that statistically weight regain is likely, that you are not a failure, and that you are not the disease, you can pragmatically go about mapping a plan to fight your relapse.

* Seek medical help and treatment: you are fighting a killer disease
* Assess your eating and exercise evolution and return to the lifestyle prescribed at the time of surgery
* Educate yourself on nutrition, physical and spiritual health so they may work in harmony to heal your body
* Seek support, family, friends, community, and fellow patients to help maintain your personal motivation
* Educate others to stop the ignorance and blame and promote the understanding of this illness we are fighting


Struggling with Regain? Try Kaye's 5 Day Pouch Test - Get the Owner's Manual

3 Tips for 5 Day Pouch Test Success

People who have undergone weight loss surgery and later gain weight are often told to "get back to basics" but we are seldom given more in depth directions. I was told that when I reported a weight gain to my bariatric center. Many of us have feelings of hopelessness: we are lost without a place to begin the act of losing weight again.

Over the years with much trial and error I developed what is now internationally known as the 5 Day Pouch Test. In addition to following the food plan there are three key things we can do to make sure the plan is a success:

Plan Ahead - Do Not Leave it to Chance

Read, study, and understand the plan completely before you begin. Plan for five days with limited disruptions including life, work, and cyclical (menstruation). Create a meal plan for all five days and purchase the food to avoid tempting trips to the market. In advance cook a pot of Carb Monster soup and divide into 1-cup portions. Mentally excite yourself over the opportunity to make new friends with your old pouch. Prepare for carbohydrate withdrawal by having fruit on hand or a supply of Emergen-C. Announce your plan to those who will support you and ask for their encouragement. Visualize feeling wonderful over your 5 day rescue and redirection mission. Plan to succeed and you will.

Use the 5 Day Pouch Test Journal

Please do not stop reading, I know keeping a food and exercise log is inconvenient. But it is a waste of five days if we do not make a record of what happens and learn from that record. The two-page journal is not complicated. You track your food, activity, motivation, and energy levels. You record your weight. In so doing you learn how your eating and activity affect your daily function. You identify hunger trends and also learn how, with the 5DPT you arrested them, and you have a marker for making your Day 6 plan. Download the Free 5DPT Journal at http://www.5daypouchtest.com/tools/tools.html

Get a Buddy

Do not go alone. Get support. Get a partner. Get a buddy. I am repeatedly impressed by the momentum of the buddy system when people do the 5 Day Pouch Test. Almost like spontaneous combustion in The Neighborhood a group will organize and do the 5DPT together. And people who are not doing it join to cheer along their fellow Neighbors. Others report tremendous success when joined by a spouse, a friend or fellow support group member. Buddies offer support, encouragement, and accountability. Do not go alone.

Two online destinations for support: LivingAfterWLS 5DPT in the Neighborhood and Kaye's 5DPT Facebook Group.

Don't use the 5 Day Pouch Test as a Fad Diet

When I began developing what became the 5 Day Pouch Test the least of my worries was losing weight. I wanted to know if my pouch still worked or if I had ruined my tool forever. Next, I wanted to arrest the eating behavior that felt so destructive and so much like before surgery when I fork-fed my way into morbid obesity. Finally, I wanted to follow my surgeon's directions and "get back to basics" - I just needed to figure out how to do that.

With much trial and more error I finally honed in on what became the 5DPT. Over the course of five days it advances through the stages of WLS post-op eating and effectively breaks the commonly reported carbohydrate addiction we tend to fall into. Most importantly, it is a refresher lesson in the oddly effective rules that keep our stomach pouches in tip-top shape and working as they are intended to work. It is a wake-up call that in most cases the pouch is still working and when we follow the rules the tool does its job.

The plan was never intended to affect weight loss in five days. That is stated multiple times in the Owner's Manual, on the 5 Day Pouch Test website and in the Neighborhood.

The plan is like an airbag you hope you never have to deploy because it means you are in an emergency situation requiring extreme action to protect you. But if you find yourself in trouble wouldn't you rather have an airbag you can count on to save you from harm?

Many people do in fact report weight loss during the five days; some significant weight loss. That is a wonderful motivational by-product of the 5 Day Pouch Test plan. But more rewarding is the spirit of empowerment that comes from knowing our pouch still works and we are capable of following the very rules that helped us lose weight after surgery.

The smart people use this momentum to continue following the Four Rules, the liquid restrictions, avoiding slider foods, and making good sound decisions so they do not need to employ the 5DPT airbag again.

Greedy people, hungry for more weight loss, disregard the lessons learned and hop on the 5DPT-do-over wagon hoping to flush away more weight.

The good news is there are more smart people embracing the full program of the 5 Day Pouch Test than there are greedy people. I honestly believe none of us went into surgery thinking we would be the one to regain lost weight. None of us wants to fad diet, we are over that. But we do get off track and we do need to have a "back to basics" plan to get back on track. Often our centers are vague with advice and we feel foolish begging for answers. That is how I felt when I went to my center for help. And that is why I share the 5DPT with the world because I do not want anyone to feel foolish and left without hope.

I encourage you to take the plan as a whole and make it your great start to 2010. Get back on track and celebrate the basic principals that, once we appreciate them, are not so difficult to follow. Below I've listed three of the best things you can do with the plan so that you own it and it becomes your victory giving you momentum to go further and better than you ever dreamed.

You Can Do This!

Join the 5 Day Pouch Test group on Facebook