WazzuCoug
Member
The following is some thoughts and opinions I've developed after spending hours reading various weight loss surgery, nutrition, and medical research papers. I'm in no way saying you should do something different from what your doctor/nutritionist or anyone else recommends to you. It's just my semi-educated opinion based my own research and conversations.
Our bodies are not designed for weight loss, but they are designed to protect our existing weight. Our biology actively fights losing weight. Losing weight isn't natural, and that is why it is so hard sometimes, even with weight loss surgery. You have to remember that for 99% of humanoid history, food was scarce, there were no grocery stores, processed foods and such. Our genetics protect our weight from starvation. It's not something we can change on a whim.
Almost all of us will stall for days, weeks or even months. Weight loss is not linear. Even though we get a great boost with surgery and the positive effect it has on hormonal signals and our microbiome, a consistent state of caloric deficit will signal your brain that you may be starving. It will slow your metabolism down.
We all have to accept these stalls will probably happen (there are some lucky genetic unicorns out there - you know who you are), and yes, the stalls are frustrating, but it's a natural adjustment. As long as you are making good food and nutrient choices, the fat will burn eventually until you reach your nadir. After that, you'll probably gain a bit back, which is also natural. However, if you continue to make good food choices, it will be much easier to maintain that weight because your body has a new set point. In this respect, allowing your body to lose weight relatively slowly can be beneficial to allow the downward adjustments of your defendable weight happen without long stalls that can happen if you go too fast.
What you probably don't want to do during a stall is lower your calorie intake below recommended amounts (see further down about a study and the related calorie intake) as this can send a starvation alert to your brain. This alert is the same thing that made most of us experience previous diet failures. When we lose fat, the hormone leptin decreases in our system. This triggers your brain to do two things: 1. Slow your metabolism down, and 2. Increase your hunger. The greater the fat loss the less leptin. The less leptin, the hungrier we get, and not for good food, we get hungrier or crappy calorie dense food. It is one of the main reasons why it is so hard to lose weight and keep is off after we have the disease of obesity.
The good news is, we get a bit of a reprieve from this after surgery, as the surgery seems to reset our hormonal signals to that of a thinner person and your body doesn't react as fiercely to protect that higher weight. After surgery, you can lose weight and don't have the strong leptin reaction that you would have prior to surgery.
Every person's body is different of course, so there is no one way to predict each person's experience, which is why we should refrain from comparing our individual path to others, although I know that can be easier said than done too. People often believe the most recent thing they tried to break a stall is what worked, but that is a familiarity/confirmation bias that is probably misleading. Most likely, your body just decided it was time, regardless of what you were doing.
Continue making good food and nutrient choices, move frequently or exercise, maintain a calorie deficit and you will succeed. Resistance training has been shown to be more effective at keeping your metabolism humming along than cardio, but the fact of the matter is exercise does very little to speed up weight loss. It does a hell of a lot to make you healthier in several ways, but food choices and diet are way more important that trying to burn away fat through exercise. That doesn't mean you should be a couch potato, there and many, many benefits to exercise and after you reach your weight loss goal, exercise has been shown to be effective in maintaining weight loss for the long term, just not as great in getting there.
As far as calories go: A recent study comparing successful WLS patients with less successful WLS patients found the more successful group was eating <830 calories during month 1, by month 6 they were up to <1100, and by month 12 they were up to <1500 calories. There was a natural progression of caloric intake, but the deficit was maintained throughout. They weren't trying to restrict themselves at month 6 or 12 like it was month 1. They followed an natural progression that fueled their body and continued fat loss. This is what I believe we should be striving for.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutritional expert, and you have absolutely no reason to believe I know what I'm talking about, BUT I do spend hours of time each week reading research studies. I dive deep into the science behind how weight loss surgery works, the common traits of long term success, and things are going very well for me in my journey. Again, this is just my opinion based on reading scholarly research papers and my own experience so far. Hell, I may change my mind in a few months, but I'm fairly confident that what I'm saying is pretty solid.
With that said, no matter how you tackle this journey, and whether or not you agree with anything I've written, the bottom line is:
We deserve this! We deserve to succeed and lead wonderful, high quality lives filled with incredible experiences.
I wish everyone the best possible success!
Our bodies are not designed for weight loss, but they are designed to protect our existing weight. Our biology actively fights losing weight. Losing weight isn't natural, and that is why it is so hard sometimes, even with weight loss surgery. You have to remember that for 99% of humanoid history, food was scarce, there were no grocery stores, processed foods and such. Our genetics protect our weight from starvation. It's not something we can change on a whim.
Almost all of us will stall for days, weeks or even months. Weight loss is not linear. Even though we get a great boost with surgery and the positive effect it has on hormonal signals and our microbiome, a consistent state of caloric deficit will signal your brain that you may be starving. It will slow your metabolism down.
We all have to accept these stalls will probably happen (there are some lucky genetic unicorns out there - you know who you are), and yes, the stalls are frustrating, but it's a natural adjustment. As long as you are making good food and nutrient choices, the fat will burn eventually until you reach your nadir. After that, you'll probably gain a bit back, which is also natural. However, if you continue to make good food choices, it will be much easier to maintain that weight because your body has a new set point. In this respect, allowing your body to lose weight relatively slowly can be beneficial to allow the downward adjustments of your defendable weight happen without long stalls that can happen if you go too fast.
What you probably don't want to do during a stall is lower your calorie intake below recommended amounts (see further down about a study and the related calorie intake) as this can send a starvation alert to your brain. This alert is the same thing that made most of us experience previous diet failures. When we lose fat, the hormone leptin decreases in our system. This triggers your brain to do two things: 1. Slow your metabolism down, and 2. Increase your hunger. The greater the fat loss the less leptin. The less leptin, the hungrier we get, and not for good food, we get hungrier or crappy calorie dense food. It is one of the main reasons why it is so hard to lose weight and keep is off after we have the disease of obesity.
The good news is, we get a bit of a reprieve from this after surgery, as the surgery seems to reset our hormonal signals to that of a thinner person and your body doesn't react as fiercely to protect that higher weight. After surgery, you can lose weight and don't have the strong leptin reaction that you would have prior to surgery.
Every person's body is different of course, so there is no one way to predict each person's experience, which is why we should refrain from comparing our individual path to others, although I know that can be easier said than done too. People often believe the most recent thing they tried to break a stall is what worked, but that is a familiarity/confirmation bias that is probably misleading. Most likely, your body just decided it was time, regardless of what you were doing.
Continue making good food and nutrient choices, move frequently or exercise, maintain a calorie deficit and you will succeed. Resistance training has been shown to be more effective at keeping your metabolism humming along than cardio, but the fact of the matter is exercise does very little to speed up weight loss. It does a hell of a lot to make you healthier in several ways, but food choices and diet are way more important that trying to burn away fat through exercise. That doesn't mean you should be a couch potato, there and many, many benefits to exercise and after you reach your weight loss goal, exercise has been shown to be effective in maintaining weight loss for the long term, just not as great in getting there.
As far as calories go: A recent study comparing successful WLS patients with less successful WLS patients found the more successful group was eating <830 calories during month 1, by month 6 they were up to <1100, and by month 12 they were up to <1500 calories. There was a natural progression of caloric intake, but the deficit was maintained throughout. They weren't trying to restrict themselves at month 6 or 12 like it was month 1. They followed an natural progression that fueled their body and continued fat loss. This is what I believe we should be striving for.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutritional expert, and you have absolutely no reason to believe I know what I'm talking about, BUT I do spend hours of time each week reading research studies. I dive deep into the science behind how weight loss surgery works, the common traits of long term success, and things are going very well for me in my journey. Again, this is just my opinion based on reading scholarly research papers and my own experience so far. Hell, I may change my mind in a few months, but I'm fairly confident that what I'm saying is pretty solid.
With that said, no matter how you tackle this journey, and whether or not you agree with anything I've written, the bottom line is:
We deserve this! We deserve to succeed and lead wonderful, high quality lives filled with incredible experiences.
I wish everyone the best possible success!
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