I wasn’t sure where to ask this question – so I started this new thread.
My GP suggested I qualify (!) have gastric band type operation – and have been reading about the benefits that simply having the operation seems to have. Quite apart from the weightloss (I know that can be difficult with problems) but just having the operation some drs now feel has a real effect on the the way we experience hunger, and can reset the metabolism.
On BSD, does that also happen or does it stay a lifelong fight with food?
I’m sure many who have had a gastric band have that same fight due to psychological factors. But that ”cure’ of wanting to overeat that I’m reading about more and more with SOME people who have an operation and so getting less of the ? hormones ? I don’t know what exactly. Does that also happen with BSD.
I’m a huge fan of 5:2 BSD, Dr MM so this is not at all a criticism – but I’m just asking if we know this or not?
For example the very new injections being trialed by UCL, they also seem (I think) to have the same effect as an operation on our hormones (or whatever the substances are called, I’m not sure),
So is BSD a way to an end (which is great) but one that once you start you have to keep on. And are the operations and possibly (hopefully) the injections a really permanent ‘cure’ for obesity. Resetting our clocks to pre-obese days? Because that is the real answer isn’t it?

Hi Speedy, i am not sure that having a gastric band makes your appetite all that different but you are not physically able to eat as much so reach a full feeling quicker. A second point is that overeating it not always a matter of hunger or appetite, it is much more complicated than that and we eat or crave foods for many reasons and I would hate to fancy a little something and know i can never have it. Some of the work done which discovered this diet was based on diabetics who had gastric bands, lost weight quickly and ‘cured’ / ‘reversed’ their diabetes. I think this diet is a less drastic way of doing the same thing. The difference that i can see is that with the band you can never overindulge and can never eat certain things so the choice is taken away from you. That is not to say people have not learnt to cheat with a band like pureeing Mars Bars etc. I would never want my freedom of choice taken away from me and have to spend the rest of my life on such a strict regime. On the BSD i chose to stay away from carbs because of the impact they have on my condition but should i choose to have a bread roll with dinner at a celebration, then i can.

Hi Sunshine-girl,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, that’s how I’ve always thought of this diet really; a safe operation alternative and keeping control. But I think drs / surgeons are finding that there are physical changes by reducing the size of the stomach – apart from changing the size of the stomach. Especially Roux-en-Y operations. Drs are seeing that more is happening than the simple mechanical effects as they first thought for years.
They are starting to realise that there are far more complex effects happening after the operations. I don’t pretend to understand it!
Here is a link to ‘proper’ research! I don’t understand it but there is something there and that is why I wonder if that is the ‘cure’ whereas BSD is maintenance.
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/76305 See Conclusions and Future Perspectives.
I totally agree about not being able to indulge and have a big ‘blow-out’ after an operation! But I do know from experience that staying on a diet by force of will for years – forever – rarely succeeds – although I totally agree that this is a fab diet. The diet pages of this group is a bit worrying I think as members try to make carb-free type substitutes. I’ve seen that for 30years on 100000 diets.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism but I wonder if the effects that the surgeons are starting to see are the ‘magic-bullet’ that we may be missing. I mean the real cure for obesity that takes away the desire to eat more rather then resisting it.
Still, I’m not sure I would dare to have an operation! Equally I’m not sure that my will-power wont let me down. I do realise I have real eating issues and many, many kilos to loose.

… this is perhaps a better report – though on mice: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.21400

Hi, Speedy, I was about to reply to your post but thought your username looked familiar? Yes, you
were with us in Dec 2017, as well as April 2018, and I replied at that time. I think the hunger hormones
you are referring to are leptin and grehlin. By googling “hunger hormones” you will find a lot of sites
that refer to it. I’ve been traveling this road for 23 months, a year of which has been in maintenance.
Will power never plays a role in my dietary choices, because I no longer have any desire to eat white
carbs/sugar. It’s difficult to know the status of those that are no longer on the boards, but those of
us who remain would probably agree that we love this WOL, and don’t feel deprived in any way. There
is a t.v. program here in the States about subjects who have had bariatric surgery. Long term, the
results aren’t very encouraging for keeping the weight off. Seems like a protracted recovery, too 🙂
Best of luck to you, whatever you decide,

Allie

Speedy, please take a look at this Dr. Jason Fung video that compares what happens under moderate calorie restriction (CR) versus intermitant fasting (IF). Jason Fung is a nephrologist in Toronto that manages a big clinical program reversing T2 diabetes in obese patients through intermitant fasting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iatPAjf5I_Y

Take a look at the following time lines on this video: 12:00 minutes in (Big Loser discussion), 29:15 minutes in (IF burns fat not muscle), 30:00 min in (metabolism with IF goes up over 4 days), 31:09 min in (even after 22 days ) and 31:40 (even after 32 weeks) no drop in metabolism with IF where there is a drop with moderate CR.

It addresses exactly the concern you have that you might just regain it all back later on. This was my big fear as well before I undertook BSD.

The data shows that moderate CR restriction results in a drop in patients basal metabolic rate (BMR) while severe calorie restriction through a variety of types of intermittant fasting (alternate day fasting, 5:2 fasting, and even 18 hr fasting) does not reduce BMR, in fact, it goes UP. He makes an evolutionary case for why (early man certainly did not eat every 5 hrs …. and having “low sugar / low energy” when not eating regularly would not enhance his chances of finding /hunting/ catching food).

He compares the data from the Biggest Loser contestants with IF patients. It turns out that over about 7 seasons all but 2 Biggest Lose patients gained all their weight back except two. One of those exercises about 5 hrs a day, and the other had gastric bypass surgery.

One of the things that prompted the diabetes researchers to look at fasting was the fact that after gastric bypass surgery, those patient’s blood sugers dropped immensely after only 4 days…..yet, they had only begun to lose weight at that point. Something else was going on to control blood sugar. They began to realize that GB patients where essentially on a fast for the first week and on a near fast for weeks after that.

The big difference between moderate CR and severe CR / IF is that moderate CR results in loss of muscle and IF does not. You burn fat not muscle when doing severe CR which typically includes dramatic reduction in carbohydrates.

So, you get a similar effect with a BSD severe calorie reduction as the gastric bypass folks have.

You do have to be mindful of your carb level forever as this is what got us all into this mess to start with. You can raise your calorie level after you lose your weight on BSD but you should not gain weight because you body needs higher levels of insulin to allow it to store fat. Without the carbs, you keep your insulin low, and because of that you should not store new fat even moderately with higher calories. However, excessive protien consumtion will also raise insulin so one has to be mindful of that.

I think the fact that we have quite a number of maintainers who have kept their weight off for more than a year (Allie, Esnecca, Clarinet Cathy, Theo, California Girl, etc) speaks to the ability of this diet to allow you to keep the weight off.

Hope this helps.

Luvtocook thanks for posting that video, I am trying to educate myself and it was really fascinating
One thing I didn’t understand is why BSD and gastric bypass surgery don’t have the negative effect of decreasing metabolism long term (like moderate CR does)? Is it because severe calorie restriction is treated by the body as a fast?

Luvtcook – brilliant post. Every new person should read it – a super precis of Prof. Taylor’s work and other research on the subject. I have started intermittent fasting recently and it has really revved up my weight loss. 18hrs is my maximum – and not even every day. Blood sugars brilliant also.

Articulate and precise, Luv! I am in total agreement with Krysia…really should be bookmarked for
all new members of the community to read! You really have a gift for the written word 🙂 Thanks!

I don’t know about the hormones, but doing this diet has drastically reduced my appetite for things such as bread and sweets. I used to want them all the time, even when I’d not long eaten them. I now feel more in control of what I eat and generally happier and healthy.

Yes, you’d have to stay on the diet to maintain the benefits, but you’d have to continue with injections (if they work) or keep the band in for life too. The maintenance part isn’t difficult to stick too.

Why not try it? You may find it works for you and you’re happy to continue, but if not you could still have the band fitted. If you go for the band first and that doesn’t work out well, you can’t just stop having it – at the very least you’d have to undergo another, potentially risky, operation.

Lonoa, I dont think any of us can doubt that there is something else going on with the gastric band as this was part of the discovery of Prof Taylor – why did diabetics become non-diabetics within weeks if not days. However, for me, i will stick to the diet.

Squidge, I agree on why do the band. Why do that to your body if you can get the same results by just eating the same thing the band would limit you to…..ie, 800 calories and under 20 carbs? If you can do it without that insult to your body, that sounds like a winner to me.

Lonoa: in answer to your question……not sure the researchers really know the exact mechanism as to why the body simply lowers BMR under moderate caloric reduction but shifts into a different mode with severe caloric reduction that does not lower BMR. It makes all the evolutionary sense in the world, but exactly how that happens phyiologically is not yet really understood. Rather than being detrimental to your body, all kinds of good things happen under IF….. a bump in BMR, muscle conservation, autophagy (destruction of “old junK” in the system, etc).

Until recently medicine did not really have much of a clue about normal metabolism and the mutliple roles of insulin, and the effect on weight loss of gut microbiota. The explosion of research into metabolism and obesity is at last starting to answer those questions and is long overdue.

Thank you Alliecat, Luvtcook, Lonoa, KrysiaD and Squidge! Very, very interesting comments that I am reading carefully.

Hi Alliecat, yes, I’ve been doing 5:2, BSD on and off – actually in 2013 – I think after the first 5:2 programme.
Always with success, than regaining. I know I have food issues – but I can’t seem to get my head to where I need to be to start yet again. I’ve always been anti (read scared!) of bariatric surgery and I’ve seen how it can fail too especially when there emotional eating problems I think.
Thank you Luvtcook. I also follow Dr Fung – sometimes I think I am just overthinking as a substitute for doing.
But watching that video brought all the data and good sense back all back.
As far as I can tell, the only down side to fasting is the effect it can have by increasing the likelihood of gallstone formation.
This was an older study that seems to confirm that. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1419405/?page=3
I wonder if eating some fat after about 10 hours fasting might counteract that? I suppose that may be how that Bulletproof coffee idea started?
Once again, thank you all for such useful and encouraging replies.

Allie, I am trying to look for Esnecca who you mentioned in your previous post to me. How do I locate her!

I think Alliecat was referring to My 600lb Life which is on Quest in the UK. Most participants appeared to think it was a magic bullet and things would change overnight and of course they still needed willpower, a strict diet and mostly failed to achieve long-term change.

As has been said cravings won’t go away which is the real diet wrecker. I’m a total newbie at the BSD and have had to dump the carbs and find a new way of eating, and quite honestly it’s a completely transformative way of eating. I’ve chosen to go for the 16:8 IF model and can truly say I don’t feel hunger or cravings. In the first two weeks I’ve lost 10lbs and whilst I don’t expect that rate of loss to continue, I don’t feel it’s a diet.

A big plus is tons of energy and feeling clear headed to the point of euphoria at times. I’m just frustrated that the ” all calories are the same” mantra has and is being trotted out against all the good evidence that some are much worse than others. I now consider refined carbs a poison, to the extent I’ve stopped feeding my dogs kibble.

Obviously each to their own but bariatric surgery won’t take away cravings or make you want to eat the wrong foods.

Hi there, Maggie! I was indeed thinking of the series “My 600lb Life”, but didn’t mention it by name, because it
never occurred to me that you would have access to it in the UK. 🙂 I think too little emphasis is put on the fact that
the emotional factors driving one to over eat at that rate are destined to return when one is forced to eat
much smaller amounts of food. Like all types of addictions, it is the desire to self regulate emotions using
food, drugs, alcohol, etc that get you there in the first place.
To illustrate that point, I was cooking dinner one evening, and the t.v. had been left on in an adjacent room.
Some talk show host was interviewing a panel of a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and 3 obese women ranging
in estimated wt from @250-350 lbs. The outstanding statistic being presented was that although not every-
one who has lived through trauma and abuse becomes obese, 97% of obese women have those experiences
in their personal histories! Although it has been well over a decade since learning this, I’ve never forgotten
it, and I’m reminded every time I catch an episode of 600lb Life. At some point, psychotherapy will be required
anyway, so why not seek treatment in conjunction with the BSD? Seems like a much less drastic way of
achieving one’s goals, and long term success rates seem about the same 🙂 Just my thoughts on the
matter… We all need to do what is best for ourselves, however.

You do raise an interesting question about trauma and abuse Alleycat. – I have come to the conclusion that my friends who can see the success for me, but don’t want to do the same themselves are using food as a crutch for other issues. So then that raises questions on where those of us are who succeed on this WOE. – Were we part of the 3 %, or had we resolved our issues for ourselves to the point of then being ready to resolve our eating patterns, or ……?

I sort of wonder if people get into a self medicating cycle of eating carbs – as in comfort food, which then generates carb cravings. ….. And by going low carb, we get ourselves out of that cycle. – I have noticed that on the rare occasions I have gone off plan, the old comfort foods are not as satisfying/ give as much pleasure as I remembered. – I don’t understand that.

It just occurred to me, I wonder if after a time on a low carb diet our gut bacteria change, so we can”t break down a high carb meal as quickly as before, so get less of a sugar rush?

Hello Allie – we get a lot of US tv, the other diet are is A Year to Save my Life . I’ve noticed, tho it’s never said explicitly, that on the 600lb programme the diet is low carb.

Yes, the fact that a history of abuse lies behind those morbidly obese people is a sobering thought. They deserve the lifeline they being offered.

They do, indeed, Maggie! The American health care system is very flawed, and I think these super morbidly
obese patients fall through the cracks. It is so difficult for most of them to even leave the house at 600lbs.,
that one can understand why they just give up! The Dr (Nowzardan does tell individuals that he has accepted
into his program that they are going to be put on a high protein low carb diet) Really a departure from the
BSD, which is a low carb, MODERATE protein, high fat protocol. The one aspect of the program that I find
regrettable is that in order to qualify for the tv program, each and every one of the patients have to be filmed
totally nude taking a shower. I have so much empathy for their condition, rather than being disgusted or
judgemental about it, and I just can’t see why this “full reveal” is necessary! TMI, and I imagine humiliating
as well. Nice to meet you, Maggie !

Allie

The showering is shocking, it’s obesity porn, demeaning people who are already in greater despair than most can imagine. It seems that these programme makers have no limits.

Nice to meet you too Allie. You really are quite an inspiration 🙂