The 7 Steps that Stop Us from Keeping Our Weight Off after a Diet

Why do we seem to always return to our previous body weight no matter how many weight loss programs we try?

The hormone called leptin is the key to this dilemma. At the recent world congress on interventional therapies for type 2 diabetes Dr. Leibel from the Columbia University Medical Center explained that our bodies are programmed to protect themselves from starvation not obesity. The challenge humans have faced throughout history is to survive despite times of famine.

Food being too easily available has not been our problem until the last few decades.
The body is tuned to defend our body weight and preserve our stored calories so we do not run out of energy in times of famine.

Here are 7 steps that keep us returning back to our previous weight each time we diet.

1). The more calories we store as fat in our fat cells the larger the fat cells become. As the fat cells become larger they put out more and more of the hormone leptin.

2). Each time we gain weight the leptin level increases and our brains are reset so our weight setting goes up to a new level.

4). This means our weight settings will go up and up each time we gain weight.

5). Unfortunately, weight setting in the brain only resets upward and does not reset downward!

6). Any fall in the level of fat we have decreases the amount of leptin and our brains will trigger mechanisms such as hunger, delay in satiation of food and decreased muscle activity to preserve our stored calories and restore our weight to the previously set level.

7). When we start to lose weight our metabolism slows down and we use 10-15% less energy so we do not use the stored calories any faster than absolutely necessary.

All of these steps serve to maintain our body fat so we have the energy we need to stay alive as long as possible during times of famine.

Unfortunately, when food is too plentiful such as we see in our time these steps work against us as we lose weight and try to keep it off.

If you have struggled to lose weight and keep it off you now understand why it is so difficult to maintain the lower weight. Fortunately, the surgical procedures we use in bariatric surgery counteracts many of these mechanisms and at least 80% of our patients keep their weight off long term.

Testimonial: Kyle Harrington Shares His Gastric Bypass Results

Kyle Harrington is 34 and a science teacher of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. He is also a father of twins, Jacob and Lilly, but he weighed 415 lbs and was struggling to do the things he needed to do. Fortunately, his wife and family were very supportive when he decided to have a Roux en-Y gastric bypass by Dr. Myers at Fresh Start Bariatrics at Riverside Methodist Hospital.

He did a great job before his bariatric operation losing 30 lbs so he could have his operation more safely. He weighed 385 lbs. at the time of his operation in December, 2009. He says having his operation was a “God send”. Kyle now weighs only 190 lbs!

He says he had a couple of “bumps” in the road including severe gout as he was losing his weight requiring prednisone and other anti-gout medicines. Also as he lost his weight it became clear he had a deformed coccyx that made it impossible to sit down. This was so difficult he had to have it removed by Dr. Myers surgically.

Now he is off several medicines including Benicar, Allopurinal, Cholchicine, Midrin, and the gabapentin he had been taking for fibromyalgia. He no longer has high blood pressure and is no longer having migraine headaches he no longer needs his CPAP machine for sleep apnea.

Now he is active in Scout’s and can even sit down in a normal position at the campsites!

Congratulations, Kyle, you have worked hard to get your best result from your operation and may God bless you and your family as you enjoy your fresh start life with your wife and twins.

Patient Testimonial Sleeve Gastrectomy

Cheryl Dalton had a laparoscopic gastric sleeve operation only 7 days ago by Dr Myers at Fresh Start Bariatrics at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. She now explains how her postoperative pain has been managed.

Patient Testimonial after Robotic Gastric Bypass on How Her Pain is Controlled

Jill Ehrhart had a robotic Roux en-Y gastric bypass just 9 days ago by Dr Myers at Fresh Start Bariatrics at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. She explains what she experienced and how her pain is controlled after her operation.

Many Paths Before Meeting Criteria for Bariatric Surgery

I have to admit I am somewhat absent minded. On occasion I will be driving along thinking about something else and miss my exit. Before I realize it I have gone quite a distance and when I finally become aware of my surroundings I ask myself, “How did I get here?” I think some of my patients are like that. They are amazed that they have arrived at a weight that is starting to harm their health.
There are many reasons people become over weight. Sometimes I hear someone explain that they had to be on steroids for their asthma and gained a lot of weight. Occasionally I hear the person had a car accident and was immobile for months and gained allot of weight at that time. Others tell of a traumatic episode in their life such as the loss of a child, a parent or even a divorce that led to depression and they started to gain weight while depressed and on antidepressants.

Dr. Tell, the psychologist that works with our program tells me that over 60% of the women in a bariatric surgery practice have been sexually abused as a child or young adult. Sometimes obesity is a way of keeping themselves at a distance from men and keeping themselves felling safe. However by the time they seek help from a bariatric surgeon they have often dealt with the trauma and are married and have healthy marriages and families but they feel trapped in their own body.

Often men tell me they were very active in sports during their teens and or while they were in the military but became much less active as the entered into the work force, found a sedentary job and have gained some weight nearly every year since then.

Women explain they gained weight with each child and now after their last child the weight seems to just keep coming. Or they gained weight during a depression following a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Still others have told me they were always heavier than their peers and cannot remember a time when they were not heavy or that food was used to manipulate them as a child and they just feel driven to eat to prove they are in control of this area of their lives.

Regardless of how a person of size arrived at their weight they usually seek help when their activity level and health are deteriorating. They often feel trapped and desperate and feel their life is slipping away from them.
What is important is that there is hope because with bariatric surgery obesity and related medical problems such as type 2 diabetes can be reversed.

I see it happen every day and I love to hear the stories of how lives are changed and how fun life is again. They tell me of new jobs, having children and having more energy to do the very things they thought they would never be able to do again. I remember John who had not been able to go on the yearly golf trip with his brother for years and the year after surgery he had lost so much weight he was able to take his brother golfing again and oh by the way he is getting married! I remember Molly who was so depressed with her life that she spent most of her time at home in bed but now she has lost all of her excess weight and is salsa dancing again and Sandy who after getting rid of most of her diabetic medicines and losing most of her extra weight took ball room dancing lessons and was recently a champion at a regional competition!

Some of my patients do crazy things like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, run marathons or going across valleys on zip lines. There are so many stories and so many changed lives. Life can be great again and you can begin to live again. Bariatric surgery can be your fresh start to life. I see it happen every day.

Patient Testimonial / Gastric Bypass / Betty McCauley

See other testimonials on my YouTube channel. Go to Google and enter "DrSteveMyers YouTube".

Obesity Causes Diabetes / Diabetes Causes Obesity

Although Type I diabetes, previously called juvenile diabetes, is a serious problem of inadequate production of insulin, in this posting we will primarily be speaking about type II which is 90-95% of all diabetes. Whereas most Type I diabetics are not obese, Type II diabetes is frequently associated with obesity. In fact, the curve associated with the increase in frequency of obesity parallels the increase in type II diabetes. That makes perfect sense since patients who suffer from obesity develop resistance to insulin resulting in increasing blood sugar levels. Most people understand that they increase their risk of developing Type II diabetes as they increase their weight and the longer they are heavy the more likely they will develop Type II diabetes.

What is surprising to people is that the reverse is also true; the treatment of Type II diabetes causes obesity. When your blood sugar is high we try to lower the blood sugar by taking diabetic pills or insulin to lower the blood sugar. However, the glucose does not just disappear. Many of the medicines drive the glucose into the cells of the diabetic so the glucose can be used for fuel. Unfortunately, many medicines including Insulin, Glyburide, Glucotrol, Amaryl, Pranlin as well as Starlix, Actose and Avandia drive glucose into fat cells increasing the amount of calories stored as fat. As a result the person becomes heavier. This in turn causes more insulin resistance requiring more diabetic medicine to keep the blood glucose down! How frustrating is that; obesity causes type II diabetes and type II diabetes make the obesity worse.