I'm in the not-telling-I-had-surgery camp where only close family and friends know I was sleeved last Aug 2018. Now at 100 lbs lighter people have been coming up to me more often asking questions. This post isn't up for debate on whether I should tell others about my surgery. Rather, I'm just wondering if a non-surgery patient could be successful by following some of our bariatric guidelines, e.g. logging food (at a calorie deficit), focus on protein first to feel full, limiting carbs, drinking lots of water, etc

Definitely there are many people out there that have changed their lives without needing surgery but everybody is different!

I've actually started my own preop much earlier than the surgeon asked.

very low calorie and high protein low carbs and I've found I'm not hungry that much compared to what i used to be, and in just 15 days I'm down 30lbs (sure might be mostly water but feeling better and lost a few inches)

The way I see it every lb lost will make the surgery easier for me and the surgical team

Yes. I was 287 when I started my journey. I mimicked what it would be like post surgery to lose down to 256lbs on the first day of my surgical 6mo. program. It was very hard. But do-able. But when I started the program, the doc made me go back to eating 1500cals cuz she didn't want me to mess up my metabolism and lose my post-surgical advantage.

But non-surgical peeps, don't get the advantage of the metabolic reset, nor do they have a cessation of the grhelin and other appetite hormones that we get. We also seem to have a better metabolic protection from slow-down than normies...

Edited September 11, 20196 yr by FluffyChix

Yes. The problem is most non-WLS patients wouldn't be able to sustain that for long. Plus, like Fluffy said, they won't have the advantage of the metabolic reset and temporarily losing their hunger.

1 hour ago, catwoman7 said:

Yes. The problem is most non-WLS patients wouldn't be able to sustain that for long. Plus, like Fluffy said, they won't have the advantage of the metabolic reset and temporarily losing their hunger.

Yeah! It's like, most of us are big time bad ass losers. Right? We can lose. But keeping it off...well that's a whole other story...

I agree it would help with weight loss. Every diet I had been on pre-surgery fell apart when I stopped logging my food and drinking lots of water. That's a must for me, I know some people don't need to log.

Agreeing with he posts about metabolism above. Our guidelines would help some people - but not people with other stuff going on.

Post-op, my diet is not that different from pre-op. I've been vegetarian since I was about 8, I have been logging food and exercise daily in MFP for 7 years and keeping to a calorie deficit, I drink the same amount that I did before (124 oz or more a day). My calories are a little lower right now as I was going on 1300 or less a day for the years before surgery, but not much difference. When I went home for the summer, my old friends didn't notice much of a difference in the amounts I eat now and the amounts I used to eat.

But I have PCOS and my hormones were beyond messed up - I really believe that surgery was the only thing that was going to work for me. Even with that, it's taking ages for the weight to come off - I was told to expect extremely slow loss, but it was still a bit of a shock how slow compared to others. So now I try not to compare, LOL.

Yes agree I've lost weight before but it always comes back on in the end..

Its not my dedication That's an ISSUE, I feel it's my metabolism and internal plumbing that's needs to be restructured to get the best chance at long term success!!

That is why I'm going with RNY!

@FluffyChix @catwoman7 remind me, what is the metabolic reset and why do only WLS patients have that advantage?

1 hour ago, rs said:

@FluffyChix @catwoman7 remind me, what is the metabolic reset and why do only WLS patients have that advantage?

there are evidently changes in "set point" - although I'm not sure they're completely understood. They may be caused by changes in hormone balances and other factors. This article talks about it a bit. They think there's more to it than just physical restriction:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485884/

^^^Exactly! And the changes happen almost immediately--in the abscense of actual weight loss. These gut hormones (ghrelin, leptin, glucagon, cck, insulin, ppy among others) rebalance and that allows the hypothalmus to defend a lower weight.

http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/diabetes/art4005.html