They don't "openly state" it until you're already here. People come here looking for general obesity help, not just one method. It's deceptive.

It's nice to see someone else who has been successful with keto and fasting - in fact, the first person here who knws anything at all about fasting. So for me, I do both IF and eating keto when I'm not fasting. I'm also a Buddhist!

It seems like you initially had a problem with fasting because you were "eating calories lower than many of us do after surgery, which caused me severe issues". There's actually a big difference between "super low calorie" and "no calories at all". An odd thing about fasting is that while sever calorie restriction (like eating only a few hundred calories a day) doesn't work and is in fact counter-productive, while eating NO calories for periods doesn't have those bad effects. I've never talked to someone who weighed as much as you did - I'm not sure if there are any metabolic difference between morbidly obese and superobese (or whatever it's called).

Without responding to your message line-by-line, I have one general question. You said things like "there are stark differences", "the changes are significantly greater with surgery", "fasting and such does not cause a permanent alteration to glucose metabolism" (and I assume you are implying WLS does), "Surgery also works faster and the changes are stronger and more resilient. It immediately begins to reverse insulin resistance by permanently changing the enteroendocrine hormones that regulate obesity".

I am wondering on what you base those statements. Di you have any proof/studies that this is the case? If you believe this, then why do you think it is? What's the difference between fasting and surgery? what magical benefit do you think surgery has that fasting does not?

Thanks for the first intelligent, non-abusive response. You are a good buddhist! :-)

People had a lower life expectancy because modern medical science is WAY better than it has ever been. These days you won't die from a broken leg or a simple infection the way we used to. It has nothing to do with the way we eat. In fact, these days as well all know it's the way we eat that is killing us.

It always amuses me that people call anything a "fad" when it is 1) new and 2) popular. First of all, intermittent fasting is hardly new, it's been practiced for thousands of years, especially in religious communities. In fact, it's been practiced ever since human beings existed, since there was no choice: sometimes there was food available, sometimes there wasn't. So, 50,000 years of evolution have designed us specifically to eat that way. Theat's WHY we gain weight in the fist place: because your body wants to store energy during good times for the times there isn't any food.

It's WLS that is the fad, my friend. It's only been around for a few short decades. Fasting has been tested for the whole length of human existence. It's been tested and proven billions and billions of times over by mother nature.

Yes, there is absolutely a risk of regaining weight after surgery. But the likelihood to regain, as well as the amount gained back, is significantly lower after WLS versus with diet-modification only,

And hopefully YOU won't be one of the people who got surgery and STILL gained a bunch of weight back!

Do you trust the Journal of the American Medical Association?

"There was a significant weight regain and a decrease in remission rates of diabetes and, to a lesser extent, other comorbidities over time."

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/bariatric-surgery-patients-see-weight-gain-after-honeymoon-period-080515#modal-close

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/242 2341 (the whole article)

Or the Mayo clinic?

"You'll always be at risk of regaining weight, even years later."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/bariatric-surgery/expert-answers/gastric-bypass-surgery/faq-20057845

>> I've lost 20% of my weight in six months., No surgery.

Come back in five years and tell us all about how you've kept it off without surgery!