Watch this. Very interesting TV regarding being obese or overweight

[LittenTree]

last night's Horizon programme on BBC2

Bump!

This is quite controversial and either enlightening or depressing depending on your viewpoint.

I have no sound on my comp (broken) can someone summarise please?

It was interesting, but I thought it left a big question unanswered:

Yes the levels of the two hormones, ghrelin and PYY are different in fat and thin people, but do the hormone levels cause weight gain, or does weight gain/poor diet change the hormone levels?

She was a personalityless presenter too.

Depressing - yes as her conclusion was that stomach bypass surgery was the answer!

And frustrating as she seemed to say that obese people don't have their hunger hormones working correctly therefore they are fat, without really looking at whether this could be reset.

FWIW IMO the hormones can to a certain extent be reset - combination of mind training and focussing on being full and hungry - thinking Paul Mckenna AND following healthy eating - Jillian Michaels talks about how to get these hormones working for you in her book Master Your Metabolism.

What a fascinating programme.

Oh, forever, I imagine every drug company on the planet are 'looking at' whether hunger and satiety hormones can be 'reset'!

Sorry, but I think the 'mind training' idea is, well, codswallop. It's up there with 'the fight/ bravely battling against cancer', so if you die? Wot a loser! Wasn't battling hard enough, was she?

Hormones or failure of sort out whether you get say type 1 diabetes. If only you'd fought harder!

It's a slightly wanky western idea, nay American idea, that if you just squeeze your eyes tightly enough and wish hard enough- voila! Instant size 8.

LittenTree I don't agree; firstly I lost 4 stone and when I was overweight I never really felt hungry and I never really felt full. Now I feel both. Admittedly its something I have really had to work and focus on (ie feeling these signals) - Paul mckenna style but now I feel both very clearly.

Also a close friend of mine who was morbidly obese is losing weight with help of hypnotherapist. I doubt her full and hungry hormones will ever been as strong as a natural thin person but she has lost 3 stone so far without calorie counting etc. Why don't you post on the Paul mckenna thread and say its codswallop?

That is rubbish though - of course you need to train your mind. Forget Paul McKenna or any specific plan for a moment, if you don't think about what you are eating and how you are eating you just won't lose weight in the long term. That is why diets don't work - they take away the need to think about what you are eating and retrain your thinking because they give you a plan and you think if you follow it all will be well. Once the diet is over, if you haven't thought about what you eat and why then you will go straight back to your old ways and pile the weight back on. 90% of diets don't work and you have to wonder why that is if all you have to do is eat less and exercise more.

Obesity isn't just about eating too much and reducing the whole thing down to chemistry. People are a lot more complex than just the sum of their bodily functions. Emotion has a lot to do with eating for a lot of people.

It is just nonsense, the idea that we are held to ransom by our hormones or our genes for that matter. We might as well just throw in the towel and not bother trying to lose weight.

Trouble is, though forever, once you start on the 'it's a question of mind over matter' statement you're echoing entirely where the public opprobrium of overweight people began (the slim female Dr on the TV programme used the words 'character' as in 'I always assumed my slimness was to do with my character' as in you're overweight because you have no moral fibre and backbone, you greedy pig), yet began to see that it isn't that simple. There are such things as fat genes, and it seems to be how and why they gets 'switched on' in some people but not in others that was the point of the programme, having established that as fact.

I must also say, and I'm sorry if I'm getting a bit personal now, I have noticed certain usernames are still on here year after year, presumably women endlessly beating themselves up about their failure to lose weight or those who have knowing that the second they 'let their guard down' and think normally about food, they'll balloon. And we all have slim mates who really can eat whatever they want, who grin evilly as they tell you that the 'one square' of chocolate they ate in front of the TV last night turned into half the bar (note; half, not all of it!) yet there they are, size 8. They don't give what they eat a thought because their body does it for them! And, should they notice their jeans a tad tight, it takes them a week, maybe 2 to happily bring it back under control, it's not a half inch on this week, another half on next week, etc etc, til lo! Size 18!- is it?

Sadly I don't think (Q: ) 'It is just nonsense, the idea that we are held to ransom by our hormones or our genes for that matter. We might as well just throw in the towel and not bother trying to lose weight.'... maybe it's not nonsense- and maybe, just maybe we could consider that the agony and almost certain long term failure that accompanies any attempt to lose weight by a truly obese person should be alleviated by a gastric band/bypass (whilst science finds a way to either reset those hormones or prevent them being mucked up in the first place)- did you see how that woman's entire attitude to fatty foods changed once she had the bypass? Explain that away in will-power!

And why do the vast majority of diets fail? Weak characters all around?

I do think there is an element of habit to overeating though, LittenTree.

I would often quite like a sandwich when I get from my evenings activities. I'm not hungry, I've had my dinner, but something to eat would be nice. Mostly, I don't let myself have it. But if I did, I would soon be doing it every night.

It would also be nice to have eg pie and chips for lunch and dinner. Some of the people on Supersized v Superskinny do eat like this. I don't let myself because it's not healthy, I don't need it, and I would soon be the size of a house. I would enjoy it though.

You just can't let yourself only eat the things you like best. In my case it would be chocolate, and I'm definitely not a half a bar kind of person (unless the bar is a 1kg one).

Yes, def habit to overeating and when overweight and in habit of overeating hormones don't work properly. And obviously some people more genetically prone for the hormones to go wrong. And some have to work harder to keep hormones in check, for others its much easier. eg my mother in law puts a biscuit down halfway through as she feels full. She has never dieted or been overweight but then doesn't ever overeat.

My take on the gastric bypass woman eating less etc was because - she had to eat less physically so as a result she stopped habit eating (as not possible anymore) and therefore she actually got hungry. I know when I overeat can take 2-3 days before hunger sets in properly again. Plus her stomach was smaller so send full signals to brain hence wanting to eat less. Plus subconsciously she knew that if she ate fattening foods she'd feel full and probably uncomfortable pretty quickly.

And yes people on here because "diets" like ww are doomed to fail - I like a combination of John Briffa and Paul Mckenna along with fitness and weight training. I have maintained 8 10 (BMI 20.5) for almost a year now.

But I have to constantly focus on not eating when full as its something sadly I can easily do.

But the post-bypass woman had apparently lost her desire towards fattening foods. It wasn't that she wanted them still but knew they'd make her throw up, thus 'denied' herself; her actual brain, as seen on a Functional MRI scan revealed the same level of 'take it or leave it' as the brain of the slim Dr.

You say: "You just can't let yourself only eat the things you like best. In my case it would be chocolate", but surely the programme demonstrated that 'naturally' slim people don't desire fatty foods in the same way as those prone to obesity; the slim of course will eat chocolate and so on but will stop when their bodies subconsciously tell them to.

I used to love fried food, eg fish in batter, chips. But it gives me indigestion and triggered IBS symptoms - this started when i was around 20. So I stopped eating it but I was denying myself. Over time though I don't desire fried foods at all.

You'd lose your desire to eat if you physically weren't able by virtue of the fact you had your stomach reduced to such a size that you weren't able to eat without feeling ill.

Have you seen the reaction some people have to a gastric band? Eating makes them physically sick. Some of them even end up malnourished because they just can't eat enough. Others have to have their food liquidised and can only manage soups because their bodies can't cope with food any more. Nothing to do with hormones at all for them.

Diets don't work because they don't change how you think about food. They provide you with a regime that you are supposed to follow. Whilst you do it it works. Once you stop, you pile the weigh back on. No big mystery about why diets fail. Unless you change the way you think about food no diet will work.

BBB Agree 100%.

You also seem to be under the mistaken opinion that will-power is just the result of mind over matter, that will power can't win against the unseen power of hormones. What you seem to have conveniently forgotten, like the programme is will power is hormonal. It is related to blood sugar levels and the effect they have on the brain. Are you saying that some hormones are stronger than other? On what basis are you making such a claim?

The other major flaw of the idea that it is only hormones is that even the surgeons in the programme couldn't work out what happened during the operation that made a difference to the hormones. There was no causality proved. Since they don't know what happened maybe the hormones changed because of a change in attitude to food because the poor people had half of their stomaches taken away and the people ate less and then their bodies adjusted hormone levels? Explain also why sometimes gastric surgery just doesn't work? People don't lose weight. If the operation is supposed to trigger some hormonal change then why is that? Why did it not get triggered? I would suggest it was because the person expected the operation to do all the work for them and didn't properly buy into the fact that they still have to think about what they eat. They have a head start because their stomach is smaller but it unless they think about what they are eating nothing will happen.

"And we all have slim mates who really can eat whatever they want, who grin evilly as they tell you that the 'one square' of chocolate they ate in front of the TV last night turned into half the bar (note; half, not all of it!) yet there they are, size 8" I would recommend How to be Slim Without Dieting 'Thin Secrets' if you want an explaination of that one. And no I don't have slim mates who can eat what they want. If they apparently gorge on chocolate without putting weight on it is usually because for the rest of the week they have eaten very little or healthily or because that night in front of the telly was the first one they had for a week and they had been active the rest of the time.

Fatness is not genetic either. There is no 'fat' gene. If there were explain why the growing problem of obesity has only been apparent post WWII? Genes don't change that fast - it takes hundreds, if not thousands of years for the genes to change so significantly that vast parts of the population have been affected. Being fat is a trait and traits aren't inheritable. I refer you again to that book above if you want to know why being fat apparently runs in families.

Jillian Michaels explains the hormones very well in her book manage your metabolism - how to get the hunger and full hormones working well. A lot of it is about what sort of food you eat.

Sorry, ladies (Big Bertha and Diet...) I'll leave the science to the scientists.

The doctors/scientists couldn't actually explain why the bypass woman didn't want the fatty/sugary foods anymore, which makes it very hard for me to say well lets lead the science to the scientists!

Also they didn't show:

a) what would happen if they did the experiment on a slim person who had been obese and dieted and was now slim
b) what would happen if they did the experiment on a slim person who had been obese, had changed to a healthy way of eating and was now slim
c) what would happen if they did the experiment on an obese person say a month into a low carb weight loss programme
d) what would happen if they did the experiment on an obese person say a month into a low calorie/fat weight programme

ie what came first? hormones or slimness?

As I said I know now I get full on much much less food than I used to. My stomach has shrunk (naturally from eating less). Part of it was changing my bad habits. Part of it was changing what I eat so don't eat food that disrupts blood sugar leading to cravings. Part of it was really focusing on eating when hungry and stopping when full.

They would all be interesting variations to consider forever

Indeed, leave the science to the scientists. You have to hope they don't jump to conclusions which are not proven and worse still, start making tv programmes about those assumptions and present them as rock solid fact.

And then even worse call the programme "the truth about fat"

The truth seemed to be that they don't really know.

I have had a Vertical Sleeve. It is where 85% of the stomach is taken away leaving you with less capacity to eat in volume.

When I had my consultation I was told that the operation works in 2 ways. Firstly you can't eat as much and secondly the area of the stomach removed is where the hormone Ghrelin is produced.

Before my operation, I totally ignored the 2nd reason for weight loss. I could not believe that I would not desire food the way that I have done all my life. I had always desired unhealthy food, even at age 5! I have craved sweets and cakes. I have dreamt about sweets and cakes. I have cruised around in my car looking for shops to sell me sweets and cakes!

I am 7 months out and have lost 9 stone.

I would say that whilst I can't eat as much food, especially non processed 'healthy' food, I can stil eat large volumes of highly processed, high sugar and high fat foods. I can still eat a family bag of kettle chips, a tube of pringles or a tube of jaffa cakes. This highly processed food doesn't stay in the stomach long enough to make you feel full.

However, I don't have the DESIRE to eat them now. Okay I may have 1-2 jaffa cakes, but I just don't 'fancy' eating masses of them.

I 100% believe that this is because I have had my Ghrelin hormone removed from my body.

More than anything, the life changing part of the operation I had was removing or at least dramatically reducing my desire of unhealthy foods. I feel equally satisfied with a salmon salad as with a bar of chocolate. In fact, I feel LESS satisfied with the chocolate as I don't get the full feeling.

I never ever felt 'full' before my operation. I could eat a HUGE 3 course meal and still have a box of chocolates after. I was never, ever totally full. I now feel full after eating 1 egg roll. I don't want anything else for at least an hour.

The hormones have a MASSIVE part to play.

I had to have an operation to realise this. I didn't even believe it when I had signed up for the operation! If the chemists can find a pill to switch the hormones off, I think it would massively help thousands of people.

I would also like to add that that there is a very big difference between people who are 2-3 stone overweight, and someone who is 8-12+ stone overweight.

I was 10 stone overweight.

My experiences in feeling full, my desire for certain foods, my craving certain foods - they kicked in full force the bigger I got.

Unless some of you on here with such strong opinions are 8+ stone overweight, you have no idea what the pull of the hormones have.

I have 7 stone to lose Pingu (not quite 8 but bad enough and I have lost about 10lbs already)

I appreciate what you are saying but it still doesn't show causality to me. You aren't going to be as interested in food if your stomach is dramatically reduced in size and you will fill full when previously you didn't because of it. You knew that you were going through a massive operation and that it was your last chance really to shift the weight. It would be difficult to quantify the difference that made to your attitude to food but I can't beleive that it had no effect.

Besides, what made me post on this thread was the claim that the way you think has nothing to do with weight loss. Of course hormones have an impact but I don't think they are the whole story and nor do I think the programme put forward a very good argument to support their claims. It was flawed. I appreciate that might have been down to a poor programme rather than poor theory but it didn't convince me that the only way to lose weight would be to do something as drastic as weight loss surgery.

And what about all those poor people who are clinically obese but not so obese that they don't qualify for the surgery. Their chances of losing weight are apparently zero until the scientists develop a tablet to replicate the effects of the op. Do you not find that both unbelievable (I know people who have lost 4 or 5 stone and are keeping it off, my mother being one of them) and deeply depressing if it is true. There would be no hope in stemming the rising tide of obesity. Far to defeatist for me.

Anyway, congratulations on your weight loss though Pingu. You must feel fantastic.

I don't doubt that gastric bypasses massively reduce hunger etc etc. I don't have a problem with saying that this is the quickest most effective way to reduce hunger.

re: the comments about being very overweight and more hunger, well that's not what the experiment showed - it showed that the obese people didn't feel as much hunger yet didn't feel full and the thin person felt more hunger and more full.

What troubled me about the programme was that it was presented that this was the only way to reduce hunger. For many surgery is not appropriate, for various reasons, for me, well I only had 4 stone to lose, so obese but only just.

We had guests for lunch on Saturday and I commented to one that I'd overeaten as I felt so full. I was so full I didn't feel like anything to eat on Saturday evening. When she and I analysed what I ate, it was probably half of what I'd have eaten for lunch when I was overweight, and then I would have eaten something later as well.

For whatever reason I am full with less food, and hence I eat less.