LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

very low calorie diet

Lost Weight with a Very Low Calorie Diet? What Now??

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I’m a very big fan of low calorie lifestyles and using very low calorie diets to lose weight and rapidly manage diabetes.

The problem, however, is what to do after the weight loss program. Our office offers two very low calorie diet (VLCD) weight loss plans that are very effective at helping patients rapidly lose weight in 4-8 weeks. Before anyone starts our program, they need to understand that this diet is merely the beginning of the rest of his or her life with less calories.

Many clinics offering these types of diets (most often coupled with the use of some form of HCG) tell patients that they are “resetting your hypothalamus” and your metabolism will be reset as well.

What a load of crap.

There is no such thing as “resetting your hypothalamus.” It sounds good, but it also makes it sound like you can go back to your old lifestyle and everything will be great. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and it is for this reason that weight gain after a VLCD is the norm and not the exception.

This particular article takes a closer look at what approaches after a VLCD were effective at maintaining or further promoting weight loss after the program. Researchers looked across 20 different studies at a variety of different approaches used after a VLCD. The average weight loss using the VLCD over 8 weeks was 27 pounds. Here’s what they found:

1. Dietary supplements over the course of 3 months had no effect.
2. Exercise by 1.98 pounds over 10 months.
3. High-protein diets by 3.3 pounds over 5 months.
4. Anti-obesity drugs improved weight-loss maintenance by 7.7 pounds over 18 months.
5. Meal replacements by 8.58 pounds over 12 months.

We can pretty much scratch the anti-obesity drugs off the list due to the long term side effects associated with their use. There are some very high quality meal replacements available on the market and some really low quality ones as well.

Without a doubt, absolutely stay away from the ones that have any artificial sweeteners in them—they will set you up for failure in the long run. Part of the success with meal replacement shakes is likely from their ease of use.

Personally, I feel that juicing (the food processing-everything-goes-in-to-the-drink type instead of regularly juicing) is a powerful tool to maintain a healthy weight. These drinks are very low calories but packed with phytonutritional value. The perfect combination for long term health.

Considering Gastric Bypass Surgery? This Works Just as Well

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Now that obesity is officially a disease (as declared by the AMA) insurance should more readily cover gastric bypass surgeries like the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

Personally, I can’t think of a quicker way to absolutely destroy your long term health than to completely replumb the way your GI tract was designed. I mean heck–what was Mother Nature thinking anyway? We can make your GI tract better (faster, stronger. Cue “Six Million Dollar Man” theme and throw in some of those mechanical cranking sounds that you’d hear when Steve Austin threw an iron beam…).

There is no doubt that people who undergo gastric bypass surgery lose weight. The most common gastric bypass procedure done in the US is the Roux-en-Y bypass, which is derived from the French would Roux, a procedure used by plumbers to redirect water from the shower directly into the toilet.

Interestingly, researchers have had a hard time finding exactly why the Roux-en-Y surgery works so well in the first few months for weight loss. The nasty little secret few surgeons will mention is the increased rate of colon cancer, bone loss, potential need to have a portion of your pancreas removed, high likelihood of nutritional deficiencies and high likelihood of weight regain in 5 years. And the procedure is essentially not reversible–your GI tract is screwed up for the rest of your life.

Most of the theories center around two aspects–GLP-1 production and very low calorie diets. GLP-1 is the “anti-diabetic” hormone that is produced by your small intestine and is the subject of most of the new diabetic research over the past 5-10 years. It may be that, with such a massive change to the GI tract, your body ups the production of GLP-1 in an attempt to expand the GI tract tissues and suck what little nutrients are present out of the calories that you are taking in. This may even be one of the reasons for the increased risk of colon cancer and pancreatic problems in Roux-en-Y surgery patients.

As for the question of calorie restriction, this particular study goes a long way towards addressing this question. Researchers compared a small group of diabetic patients who underwent the Roux-en-Y bypass to a similar group of diabetic patients who spent 21 days on a very low calorie diet that closely mirrored those who had the surgery (500 calories / day). This number may sound familiar–it’s the same amount of calories taken in the HCG / Simeon’s diet protocol as well as the weight loss program that we offer in our office.

For those of you who have already had the surgery, you may want to stop reading here. After 21 days, the weight loss was the same. Further, changes in insulin sensitivity, β-cell function, fasting glucose and fructosamine levels were similar. In other words, the caloric restriction, at least in this study, was the most powerful tool and not the surgery. And, as mentioned, you’re stuck with the surgery.

Some may say that maintaining a 500 calorie per day diet is just too hard. Really?? Compared to having a major gastrointestinal surgery that completely screws up your body’s ability to digest and absorb nutrients?

Either way, the next time you or a friend go to an informational meeting at one of the weight loss centers (i.e. surgical centers) ask the presenter if a very low calorie diet can help instead of surgery. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how they answer the question.

HAVE SLEEP APNEA BUT HATE USING A CPAP?

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There is nothing good about sleep apnea.  It deprives the brain of oxygen consistently through the night.  It stresses the body out and creates all the negative consequences of stress on the body.  It also keeps the body from settling into the deep sleep that our body needs to heal and recover from the day’s abuses.  Sleep apnea is strongly associated with heart disease.  It cannot be ignored.

Typically, the diagnosis is via a sleep study.  Once sleep apnea is identified, a CPAP machine is usually used to aid the patient in attaining deep sleep.  Unfortunately for many, the CPAP machine can be cumbersome, load or claustrophobia-generating.  Luckily, there are other answers.

First, if the primary apnea is obstructive in nature, you may be surprised that learning to circular breath can provide great relief.  There is an Australian musical instrument called a didgeridoo.  Learning to play this instrument can help with sleep apnea and snoring and has a handful of clinical studies to support this.

Far more scary is central sleep apnea.  This occurs because the brain’s respiratory center is affected by prediabetes, creating the apnea.  Sleep apnea will make prediabetes worse and prediabetes will make sleep apnea worse.  It produces a snowball effect.  It NEEDS to be managed.

Obviously, pulling away from a diabetic lifestyle will help with the sleep apnea.  This particular study supports this in finding that a very low calorie diet provided improvements in sleep apnea scores.  Half the patients in this study, one year later, were off of their CPAP machines.  THAT is powerful medicine.

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d3017.abstract