Background: Performing habitual physical activity (PA) is challenging for many bariatric surgery patients.
Purpose: We used electronic ecological momentary assessment to naturalistically examine whether insufficient PA among bariatric surgery patients was due to infrequent PA intentions or inadequate follow through on PA intentions.
Method: Twenty-one patients 6-months post-bariatric surgery were recruited from multiple clinics in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Participants used a palmtop computer upon waking for 6 days to indicate whether they intended to be active, and if so, the amount of PA they intended to perform in bouts ≥10 min. Each evening, participants reported PA minutes and barriers encountered that day.
Results: All 21 participants reported intending to be active on at least 1 day but only 9 (42%) intended to be active on ≥70% of days. Twelve (57%) participants performed PA on each of the days they intended, but none achieved the amount of PA they intended on all of these days. Overall, participants had PA intentions on 81 of 123 days (66%); these were partially implemented (≥10 PA minutes) on 49 days, but fully implemented on only 15 days. Participants spent 34 min in PA, or 20 fewer minutes than intended. "Lack of time" was the only frequently cited barrier, particularly on days that PA was neither intended nor performed.
Conclusion: Few patients intended to be active on a near daily basis and all patients had difficulty in implementing their intentions. Interventions that target planning strategies may help facilitate PA intentions and limit discrepancy between intended and actual PA.