Wed, May-04-11, 02:06
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
May 03, 2011
Liposuction vs. Transformation: Procedures Can't Change You, But YOU can!!
by Barbara Berkeley, MD
You know that person of your acquaintance who had bariatric surgery and gained it all back? What happened?
The answer is simple. They believed that the procedure alone could "fix" them. But our current surgical treatments for obesity are sold the wrong way. Rather than being fixes, they are helpers. Most patients arent' told that. What do I mean by "helpers"? I mean that bariatric surgeries give you the time and inclination to transform.....if you want to.
As drastic as bariatric surgery may seem, it alone is not enough to create permanent weight loss in many people. What it does do, quite effectively, is buy patients about a year and a half to change eating habits. During the early period after surgery, pain, nausea, vomiting, dumping syndrome and extreme fullness are enough to make the surgically-altered disinterested in eating. But over time, many people regain their tolerance to larger amounts of food and to the toxic food elements of the SAD (standard American diet). If, during the first 18 months, the surgerized have jettisoned S Foods (sugars and starches) and fatty combo foods from their diet, the operation will help them stay slim forever. If, as is often the case, they have learned to eat "through" the surgery, no amount of restriction or bypass is enough to keep weight from returning. Thus, your obese-again acquaintance.
Liposuction is a surgical alternative that provides even less in the way of help. Subcutaneous fat, the fat that lies right under the skin, is removed. Dangerous deposits of visceral fat, the fat that hangs around inside your abdominal cavity, is left untouched. Nothing about the procedure other than your slimmer thighs encourages you to change eating habits. Now, a new study published this month in Obesity reveals worse news. After liposuction, fat comes back but changes location. Often, the new fat winds up in the belly.
The study divided women who were not obese, but who had fatty deposits in thighs and lower abdomen, into two groups. One group got liposuction while the other did not. Both groups were advised NOT to change lifestyle habits during the study, so food intake remained constant. Please note this, as it is important.
Immediately after the liposuction, the body fat percentage and amount of total body fat of the operated ladies was significantly lower than that of the control group (the ones who got no liposuction), but by 6 months this difference was vanishing and by one year it was gone. The fat had returned and the amount of fat in both groups was now equal. Strikingly, however,in the operated women the thigh and buttock areas remained less fat, while new fat appeared in the abdomen. At the one year mark, both the liposuctioned women and the controls had more abdominal fat than they had at the beginning of the study. Worse, there was a tendency for the liposuctioned women to gain more fat in the visceral area: inside the belly. That area is the most dangerous area for fat accumulation as the deposits there produce toxic and inflammatory chemicals that affect the rest of the body.
Should we be surprised by these results? I, for one, am not. If the body is storing fat because of a diet that encourages this, it will find a place to put that fat. Perhaps during liposuction, the local fat tissue is damaged or its ability to reproduce itself destroyed. If that option is gone, the body will simply look for another place to store the fat.
What disturbs me most about this study is not the fact that fat comes back. Instead it is this paragraph, found in the discussion section (the underlining is mine):
When AT mass (fat mass) increases or decreases, neurohormonal signals stimulate individual responses that promote a return to the original level . Weight-loss itself creates a context for weight regain linked to increases in appetite, food intake, and increased insulin sensitivity. In this study, outside of a weight-loss paradigm, undefined physiologic mechanisms seem to have restored the surgically induced imbalance between AT and fat-free mass.
Translation: Once you lose weight, your body responds by making lots of powerful chemical signals that tell you to eat more and put the weight back on. You eat more and regain. But who says so? In this study, the researchers controlled for food intake. Theoretically, the women DIDN'T eat more after they were liposuctioned. According to these study results, the weight loss actually did not cause the stated "increases in appetite" and "food intake". As a result, the researchers came to the conclusion that some"undefined" physiological mechanisms were at play.
Here's what I think happened. Both groups were eating diets that tended to put on fat. No attempt was made to alter that diet. The liposuctioned group caught back up to the non-operated group within one year. Both groups increased the level of visceral fat in their bodies at one year, so both were eating diets that promoted fat and nothing at all changed. Inserting a procedure into the equation didn't alter the basic problem.
If it were inevitable that "undefined physiologic mechanisms" caused weight regain, there would be no successful weight maintainers. Having written this blog for over two years now and through it having met and corresponded with scores of successful maintainers, I know with certainty that regain is NOT inevitable. But here is what IS inevitable: continued weight accumulation if you are eating a fat promoting diet.
It's time for those of us who are serious about getting healthy to face this hard truth. No pill, no surgery, no liposuction catheter can do anything more than temporarily reverse the process. But we can permanently disable the process with our own food transformation. If we stop eating the foods that stoke the insulin machinery, our body can't make fat. Is there some overarching compulsion that forces us to return to sugar, starch and high fat treats? Yes. But I believe that the compulsion is less physiological (inside our body) and a lot more cultural. And that's good news. More and more of us are figuring out ways to accomplish a food conversion, a permanent and complete change in the way we eat. As I've said numerous times before, the most important thing we can do to facilitate this conversion is to keep trying. As time goes on, the chances that you will accept and come to love a diet that is made up of foods that never saw a factory and that have no starch and very little sugar increases. So keep trying, and when you wake up tomorrow, ask yourself this question: is today the day that I'm going to make the change and make it stick? Am I ready? One fine morning, the answer will be yes.
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http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...ut-you-can.html |
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) that no dietary adherence or exercise seem to reduce. 
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