About Us
OUR MISSION
We use evidence-based science and our deep knowledge and experience of the bariatric surgical person to provide high quality, reasonably priced supplements that meet all of their unique and specialized needs. We aim to provide comprehensive and ongoing education using various platforms to enable those who have had, or will have bariatric surgery, to understand the effects of their surgery and what is required to maximize their success and optimize their health…both now, and in the future.
DR. ROBERT MAREMA, FACS
Bariatric Surgeon
When I started my bariatric surgical practice over 30 years ago, I knew that if I was going to do it, I needed to do it “right”. This meant that I would deliver excellent surgical technique, being one of the first people to master performing the gastric bypass using the laparoscopic approach and performing it both safely and with excellent outcomes. There was so much more that this patient population required beyond the surgical skill. I firmly believed that safe and effective bariatric surgery would require a team of highly trained professionals that would provide guidance and support throughout their post-operative journey. Lifestyle change that the bariatric surgery patient should experience, would require a massive amount of support for the patient. I hired my team of nutritionists, exercise physiologist, psychologists, chaplain, support group leader, and nurses to support the patients that I was caring for. I was proud of the program I built and it was transforming a thousand lives each year.
However, there was one thing missing and that was vitamin supplements geared to the needs of the bariatric patient. Back then, more than 25 years ago, there were only 1 or 2 supplement companies that offered a product. Unfortunately, based on the science I knew regarding the nutrient needs after surgery, those options did not meet the minimum requirements. I decided to hire a biochemist who was well known in the obesity and bariatric surgery world to help me design a bariatric vitamin line that I could be confident in, and proud of, to meet my patients’ needs. That is how Building Blocks Vitamins were created. To this day, 25 years later, I know confidently that those who take these vitamins have a low risk of developing deficiencies and the problems associated with inadequate nutrients. I have followed 10,000 patients using these supplements many years after surgery with lab evaluations and can tell just by looking at the results if they are, or are not, using these supplements.
Whitney Marema, APRN
Functional Medicine Certified Nurse Practitioner
Over the last 23 years, I have been committed to the care of the bariatric patient. First, as a hospital floor nurse caring for the patients in the first post-operative days, to the nurse in the office, helping coach thousands of patients through navigating their new lifestyle…and then as a nurse practitioner where I have been the sole practitioner guiding their care. I obtained the first ever “certified bariatric nurse” certification through the ASMBS and have been committed to evidence-based practice, always on the cutting edge of new research and findings and applying it to the patients that I serve. It has been a privilege to be a part of each persons’ journey of healing and lifestyle change. This journey isn’t always smooth, but my experience and empathy for each individual struggle has allowed me to become masterful at meeting people where they are and guiding them forward.
In 2016, I reached my personal breaking point with my own weight struggle and as new health issues arose, I took the plunge to have bariatric surgery myself. This took my patient care to a whole new level. I was then truly able to put myself in my patients’ shoes because more often than not, I intimately knew what they were going through.
In the last few years, I felt a calling to deepen my skillset that would allow me to provide real solutions to peoples’ complex issues. This would require me to step outside of the conventional medical model of making a diagnosis and prescribing a treatment (usually a medication). I found these answers in the more holistic and lifestyle-based model of “Functional Medicine”. The schooling and certification process taught me invaluable skills that allows me to investigate the “why” of the issue or complaint of the patient, not just the “what”. This means that I am able to put the puzzle pieces of each story together in a way that looks at root causes and upstream drivers for a condition or symptom and treat the upstream cause. In this model, people can truly obtain healing and resolution rather than simply putting a band-aid on symptoms with a medication. Applying a functional medicine approach to the bariatric patient has reignited my passion for patient care in a way I never thought possible. There are so many “aha moments” now between my patients and I! My goal is always to empower and educate people to understand the lifestyle drivers for their health concerns and take action to heal themselves! My passion and abilities are to help people get well and STAY well without the use of medications, but rather using their diet and supplements as their pharmacy. This truly helps people optimize their health into their own personal highest functioning self. (Functional Medicine!) My goal is to help people move from a state of surviving into one of truly thriving in the best health of their life!
The Bariatric patient has an altered digestive process that, while it allows them to lose weight through food restriction, malabsorption, and hormonal changes… it also causes downstream effects including higher nutrient needs, various downstream consequences of sub-optimal vitamin and mineral levels, and possible GI consequences and complaints. Applying my vast bariatric experience and education as well as root cause medicine, allows me to provide proper guidance from a nutrition, lifestyle, and SUPPLEMENT standpoint in order to treat current problems, but more importantly.. PREVENT future ones from occurring. This is why I am well positioned to guide Building Blocks vitamins in product development and protocols. I look forward to being a part of your health and wellness journey and optimization and I hope to see you THRIVING!