# Weight loss as a result of surgery



## Taken Aback (Aug 3, 2009)

I've heard that weight loss is often a result of the body's effort to heal wounds resulting from major surgical procedures. Has anyone here experienced this, and were able to take advantage of it by maintaining their new weight?


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## 12345Michael54321 (Mar 6, 2008)

Taken Aback said:


> I've heard that weight loss is often a result of the body's effort to heal wounds resulting from major surgical procedures.


Weight loss - unless it's the result of amputation or dehydration (or, I suppose liposuction, removal of organs, cutting off a lot of hair, etc.) - is the result of the body "burning" more calories than it consumes. This is the single great truth of all weight loss: Calories consumed > calories expended = weight loss. And nothing written in the zillion or so pages of diet books can contradict this basic truth; at best they can explain how to better control the calories consumed part, or how to maximize the calories expended part. More often, they contain nothing of any real value. (That's right, the "Celebrity Chocolate and Bacon Diet for Thinner Thighs and Super Energy!" is likely to be worthless, no matter that it was written by a former reality tv show star, and has been on the best seller list for 5 weeks.)

I suppose it's possible that healing wounds resulting from major surgical procedures causes the body to burn a significant amount of extra calories, resulting in weight loss. I really don't know. I have no difficulty believing that healing requires some extra calories; I just don't know, off hand, whether we're talking about enough calories to constitute a noticeable weight loss over the course of a typical hospital stay.

I do know a few extremely overweight people who have gone into the hospital, had surgery, lost weight, and kept it off. But in each case the long-term weight loss was due to changes in diet, and to a lesser - but still meaningful - extent, changes in exercise and physical activity habits. Having a major health scare, perhaps combined with your cardiologist explaining that this time you survived, but you shouldn't count on being so lucky if there's a next time - can sometimes motivate one to make a few lifestyle changes. Sometimes.

More often however, the patient is sent home, and whatever weight he may have lost during a week or two in the hospital (perhaps due to the hospital diet being a couple of thousand calories per day less than he's used to consuming) is soon put back on. And more besides, as likely as not.
-- 
Michael


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## Apatheticviews (Mar 21, 2010)

Taken Aback said:


> I've heard that weight loss is often a result of the body's effort to heal wounds resulting from major surgical procedures. Has anyone here experienced this, and were able to take advantage of it by maintaining their new weight?


You have to break personal habits in order to maintain the lost weight. It takes X calories to maintain 250 lbs. if you consume X calories at 200 lbs, you will eventually expand to 250 lbs again.

Adjusting & maintaining weight is a mathematical formula. Calories in, calories out. What you eat minus your Resting calories (just being alive) and your Active calories (how much you "work out" beyond being alive). Doing little things like swapping sodas for water can have huge impacts, or choosing not to have that 600kcal Starbucks each morning (which is about half/third the Resting calories for most people).


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## Taken Aback (Aug 3, 2009)

Excellent advice, and some which I've repeated to others in the past (although I always feel like a fugitive advising another not to commit a crime when I do).

However, I am genuinely interested in whether anyone who has undergone surgery experienced unexpected weight loss that didn't seem commensurate with their diet. I was told (by an NP) that the trauma of surgery can cause the body to consume stored fat in preference over the current intake of food, and weight loss is often a result. I have not seen any testimonials to that effect when googling (most hits tie in with "weight loss surgery"), and I wondered if anyone here has personally experienced this as a patient (or as a practitioner).

As for taking advantage of it, I expect one's weight probably returns to what was normal before. Maintaining a new weight as a result of this kind of trauma is probably just wishful thinking. It would be nice, though.


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## Apatheticviews (Mar 21, 2010)

Taken Aback said:


> Excellent advice, and some which I've repeated to others in the past (although I always feel like a fugitive advising another not to commit a crime when I do).
> 
> However, I am genuinely interested in whether anyone who has undergone surgery experienced unexpected weight loss that didn't seem commensurate with their diet. I was told (by an NP) that the trauma of surgery can cause the body to consume stored fat in preference over the current intake of food, and weight loss is often a result. I have not seen any testimonials to that effect when googling (most hits tie in with "weight loss surgery"), and I wondered if anyone here has personally experienced this as a patient (or as a practitioner).
> 
> As for taking advantage of it, I expect one's weight probably returns to what was normal before. Maintaining a new weight as a result of this kind of trauma is probably just wishful thinking. It would be nice, though.


One of the big things I learned when I started running again was that if I didn't keep my fat intake up, i didn't heal right after runs. I became more susceptible to injuries. I don't have the citation, at the moment, but I think it was Men's Health, that mentioned that muscle regrowth required fat more than carbs as an energy source (while using protein as the building blocks).

This would jive with the major surgery phenomena, since you have to go through muscle to get to anything in the body.

Keep in mind though, that you are also separating yourself from places with "bad portion control" during surgery & immediately after, which probably helps a lot as well. No trips to Olive Garden, or for $5 coffee. If you are reducing your average intake of calories for a few weeks, due to lifestyle change (bed/house ridden) you'll see a moderate drop in weight.

I imagine it's a combination of factors causing the weight loss, with the surgery being the central event, but not necessarily the cause.


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## OliT (Mar 13, 2012)

Okey, so, you've pretty much left this part of the topic, but I still wanted to add that I'm one of the people that is actually extremely happy with getting weight loss surgery.
From August 2010 to this day, I've lost just around 210 pounds. Yeah, _lost_ 210 pounds.
I'm still about 40 pounds too heavy, but still, I get in to a 46L, as compared to 60 or whatever I had when I was at my heaviest. The 40 pounds that I have left will come off with hard work and keeping in line with eating small portions and avoiding the worst food, just like for anyone losing weight.


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## Anon 18th Cent. (Oct 27, 2008)

OliT,
Congrats. You have made life-changing and perhaps life-saving changes! If you don't mind me asking, how old are you and how has your skin reacted? Thanks, Ed


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

With multiple shoulder and hip proceedures behind me (pun intended), alas, I must report that in almost every instance I gained a bit of weight (which was eventually scrubbed away when my cardio routines were resumed), in (I think) every instance, during the recovery/rehab process. It seems my response to pain is to eat! :crazy:


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## M Go Crimson (Aug 20, 2011)

I have several acquaintances that went through tendon, ligament, knee, shoulder and back surgeries as a result of injury. Initial weight loss is guaranteed in every case as they were highly trained weight lifters, but if a pre-surgery diet was maintained the weight soon bounced back and eventually lead to fat gain if caloric intake was not reduced to match their new, lower level of activity. Any sort of tissue repair, including the micro-traumas induced by weight lifting, require an immense amount of calories to repair. The bigger the repair the more food it requires.



Taken Aback said:


> Excellent advice, and some which I've repeated to others in the past (although I always feel like a fugitive advising another not to commit a crime when I do).
> 
> However, I am genuinely interested in whether anyone who has undergone surgery experienced unexpected weight loss that didn't seem commensurate with their diet. I was told (by an NP) that the trauma of surgery can cause the body to consume stored fat in preference over the current intake of food, and weight loss is often a result. I have not seen any testimonials to that effect when googling (most hits tie in with "weight loss surgery"), and I wondered if anyone here has personally experienced this as a patient (or as a practitioner).
> 
> As for taking advantage of it, I expect one's weight probably returns to what was normal before. Maintaining a new weight as a result of this kind of trauma is probably just wishful thinking. It would be nice, though.


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## Taken Aback (Aug 3, 2009)

eagle2250 said:


> With multiple shoulder and hip proceedures behind me (pun intended), alas, I must report that in almost every instance I gained a bit of weight (which was eventually scrubbed away when my cardio routines were resumed), in (I think) every instance, during the recovery/rehab process. It seems my response to pain is to eat! :crazy:


Gah! I don't want to hear that. ic12337:



M Go Crimson said:


> I have several acquaintances that went through tendon, ligament, knee, shoulder and back surgeries as a result of injury. Initial weight loss is guaranteed in every case as they were highly trained weight lifters, but if a pre-surgery diet was maintained the weight soon bounced back and eventually lead to fat gain if caloric intake was not reduced to match their new, lower level of activity. Any sort of tissue repair, including the micro-traumas induced by weight lifting, require an immense amount of calories to repair. The bigger the repair the more food it requires.


I assumed as much. As I said earlier, I had heard that the body would tend to consume itself if a diet were not increased to provide the additional energy needed for healing.

Of course, what I _wondered_, was if there were a way to take advantage of it in order to maintain the lower weight. Obviously, I wouldn't want to impair the healing process, so maybe it's better not to risk anything.


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## M Go Crimson (Aug 20, 2011)

Taken Aback said:


> Of course, what I _wondered_, was if there were a way to take advantage of it in order to maintain the lower weight. Obviously, I wouldn't want to impair the healing process, so maybe it's better not to risk anything.


 Maintaining a high caloric intake to recover from training while losing fat has been done successfully for decades. This is possible through food choice and timing. Unfortunately, I have no experience with a protocol for those that are recovering from surgery and not engaging in intense resistance training. I'd take a look at carb cycling combined with carb backloading if resistance training can be done post-op.


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## M Go Crimson (Aug 20, 2011)

Apatheticviews said:


> I don't have the citation, at the moment, but I think it was Men's Health, that mentioned that muscle regrowth required fat more than carbs as an energy source (while using protein as the building blocks).


 Carbohydrates and amino acids(leucine in particular) are essential to up-regulation of AKT/mTOR signaling, leading to protein synthesis. Fat post-workout slows the digestion of protein/carbs, inhibits glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis in muscles and, if I remember correctly, blunts the insulin/IGF response as well.

Overview of muscle protein synthesis
https://jap.physiology.org/content/106/4/1367.full

Leucine + carbs PWO effect on protein synthesis
https://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/294/2/E392.full


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## yen157 (Feb 16, 2012)

Apatheticviews said:


> You have to break personal habits in order to maintain the lost weight. It takes X calories to maintain 250 lbs. if you consume X calories at 200 lbs, you will eventually expand to 250 lbs again.


Ah, but don't forget that the formula changes over time. With X calories you could end up at 265 as metabolism inevitably slows with age.


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