Happy Gut, Healthy Weight: Discover How a Happy Gut Holds the Key to Achieving and Maintaining Your Healthy Weight

Copyright © 2018 Dr Arun Dhir, MD.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Nikola Kolundzic, Imran Razik

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The information, ideas, and suggestions in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Before following any suggestions contained in this book, you should consult your personal physician. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-1565-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1566-1 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:  08/19/2024

This book is dedicated

To my patients and clients, to whom I remain forever indebted for their trust in me.

To my beautiful family… I would be incomplete without you all.

To my parents, who taught me to be of service

to humanity in every way… every day.

I am what I am because of you.

THE REAL CHALLENGE

WITH WEIGHT LOSS

Oh, no, not again, you might be thinking.

Not another book on weight loss!

Not another book on how to lose weight with low calorie recipes, when everyone believes (and knows) that eating less and exercising more is the secret to losing weight.

Besides, isn’t it true that all diets eventually fail?

We all know that all those diet programs, from the Atkins to the Paleo diet to Nutrisystem to Weight Watchers all work temporarily, and then most people gain the weight back – or some just can’t sustain their new diet anymore.

The REAL challenge with

weight loss is not weight loss!

It’s weight maintenance.

Yes, you heard me right. The real challenge with weight loss is not weight loss. Most of us who desire to lose weight – have managed to lose weight on those Mum or Man shakes or by taking appetite suppressing pills or injections. The real challenge, as I hear it from my patient’s time and time again, is weight maintenance. Once the diet is over, the weight just comes back with a vengeance. And inevitably overshoots the mark from where it started. This leads to progressive weight gain over every dieting cycle.

But who am I to say all this?

I am a gastro-intestinal and bariatric (weight loss) surgeon from Melbourne, Australia - someone who has cut, healed, stitched, and researched the human gut for over two decades. Through my work, I have seen the scourge of obesity up close. To say that the insights I have gained thus far have been fascinating would be an understatement. Along the way, I’ve not only learned much about weight loss, but also come to realise that the many tools for weight loss including surgery can only provide temporary benefit to those who are considering this option unless it is combined with the lifestyle skills that cause a shift on a physical and a mental level. That is where the idea of writing a book of this style was born. A book that provided the reader a holistic - a whole person approach to weight management rather than just ‘another meal plan’.

My decades of experience have convinced me that - The real problem with weight loss is not weight loss. It is weight maintenance.

Many of my clients have tried, in their words ‘every diet known to mankind’, only to be met with frustration. Perhaps dieting was never meant to work. I do not mean to say that if nothing works then might as well continue with the SAD (Standard American/Australian Diet) diet! No. I just mean to state what I see in my office and hear from my clients on a daily basis.

I am convinced that a person’s ability to maintain their healthy weight is a reflection of their ability to create lifestyle changes that support their healthy weight. This is where the "Weight loss problem is not just a calories game. Rather it is a mental game".

Being a yoga and meditation teacher has allowed me valuable insights about the mind – gut- body connection, which I have attempted to share with you in a practical, easily ‘digestible’ manner – such that you also can take charge of your health.

My personal voyage in search of answers to the many questions I had led me to become an avid student of the ancient wisdom of health and wellness, as embodied by the world’s healthiest and longest living people. The revised edition of the book allows me to be an instrument of service, so that I can share the knowledge I gained in order to help you achieve optimal health and vitality – and maintain it, too!

After all, achieving optimal health – on both physical and mental levels – is a primal human need.

"If you do not make time for health,

You will have to make time for disease."

This book is written on the tenet of embracing a ‘holistic’ whole person approach to weight loss and weight management.

I have not written this book to profess the benefits of weight loss surgery either. While surgery may be a suitable option for some (not all), the ideas presented in this book are not only a lot simpler to apply and wire... trust me, but they are also a lot less painful, than surgery! And (I believe) if you faithfully applied the concepts I talk about in the book, you may never need to be on a diet ever, let alone needing to think about bariatric (weight loss) surgery.

Science is beginning to unveil another chapter in our understanding of weight loss. It appears that the magic bullet to health, longevity, and weight control naturally lies in your own gut and your microbiome, a scientific word for the quality and quantity of bugs in your gut, is a big part of it. It is the influence these tiny bugs exert on our thoughts, cravings, and food choices is –surprise surprise – too strong to be ignored.

This is not hearsay, anymore!

The subject of gut health has been topical since the times of Hippocrates in 350BC. Many eastern traditions and religions have acknowledged that all disease begins in the gut. Interest in gut health has been re-ignited, however, since the recent discovery of the gut microbiome and the influence it exerts on our brain, our metabolism, and the immune system, to name only a few systems feeling its effects. Virtually every week, a new scientific study comes out on how our microbiome underlies not only weight control, but also disease, from cardiac to autoimmune, as well as our mental health issues, from depression to autism and schizophrenia. In fact, the volume of information on the gut microbiome is growing so rapidly now that you could nearly link any adversity in your life to your gut’s health.

So, if you want to heal your life, start with the Gut.

This book will allow you to transition from theory to practice.

While, so far, science on the subject of weight loss has been fascinating, let’s admit that it has also been very confusing. It would perhaps be safest to say that science in this space is ever evolving... and that is what forms the basis of evolution.

This book sets the foundation for a lifestyle where achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is practically possible, and most importantly with no artificial synthetic diets or magic pills. The success mantra of this work rests on this one premise Happy Gut = HealthyWeight.

So, put on your seatbelts and take this exciting journey with me to a new, vibrant, healthy, and a naturally energetic life.

If you are hard pressed for time to get into this book today, then just scan this QR code and watch this video summary and start empowering yourself when you pick this book up next.

"Ultimately the best use of a physician’s knowledge

is to teach people how to heal themselves."

- Dr. David Simon, MD

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

PART I: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON OBESITY

Chapter 1     The Gut Microbiome: Our Sanctuary of Health

Chapter 2     Inflammation: The Root of All Disease

Chapter 3     How Stress is Making us Fat

PART II: THE GUT-WEIGHT CONNECTION

Chapter 4     The Gut: Our Second Brain

Chapter 5     Gene Power vs. Gut Power

Chapter 6     The Metabolism – Our Engine of Life

PART III: HOW TO CREATE A HAPPY GUT

Chapter 7     Food as Medicine

Chapter 8     A Holistic Approach to A Happy Gut

Chapter 9     Supercharging Your Metabolism

Appendix A: A Sample Happy Gut Routine

Appendix B: How Weight Loss Surgery Affects Your Gut

Appendix C: The Body Genesis Approach: The Winning Formula to Creating A New You

Appendix D: Portion Size vs Serving Size: How to Read Food Labels

Appendix E: Our Environmental Toxins and Disease

Acknowledgements

Resources

References

About the Author

PREFACE

In his book, Happy Gut, Healthy Weight - Dr Arun Dhir has combined his many years as a gastro-intestinal clinician and bariatric surgeon, educator as well as keen student of lifestyle approaches with ancient wisdom and modern science. Many years in the making, this book now gives us a fresh approach to health and weight loss, with a specific focus on the microbiome. The microbiome is the collection of micro-organisms in and on our body, especially those in the large intestine.

Research into the microbiome is changing medicine. We now understand the importance of the microbiome as the central ‘engine’ of our bodies and brain’s health. Research has shown a connection between the gut bacteria and weight and obesity. We understand that in our complex human body, the gut microbiome regulates body functions. Too many of the bad bacteria, like parasites and yeasts and not enough of the good ones, like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria, can lead to serious health issues.

Just like us, our Microbiome too is in a constant state of change depending upon our lifestyle, diet, stresses, medications etc.

Until recently, issues surrounding weight loss have usually focused on diet and exercise. In this book Dr Dhir’s view on weight management diverges somewhat from the standard focus on specific diets and counting calories. He delves deeper into the recesses of our ‘gut’ to find the answers to losing weight and keeping it off.

The gut-weight link is explored in detail, as well as looking at important factors such as stress management. The focus therefore of this book is to look at a whole approach, starting with fixing the gut flora which extends to improvement in overall health and weight management.

This book is packed with practical information about how we can heal our gut, prebiotics and probiotics, extensive information of different foods and their benefits, stress management, exercise, environmental toxins, lifestyle improvement and much more. It is significant that appropriate references are also provided in this book which highlights its scientific approach.

This is a ‘weight loss’ book with a difference. The answers lie in healing our gut health and adapting a healthy lifestyle. We are what we eat, and so are the bacteria living in our gut. The good news is that we can vastly improve our gut bacteria and hence weight management!

Dr Dhir’s book is at the cutting-edge of new research that is starting to unravel the link between gut-bacteria and why it is that some people can lose weight whilst others struggle.

I am confident that this book by Dr Dhir, ‘Happy Gut, Healthy Weight’ is an amazing recipe for lasting health. It is a compelling read for any health seeker. I will encourage everyone to adopt Dr Dhir’s mantra of ‘Happy Gut = Happy Body’.

Professor Avni Sali AM

MBBS, PhD, FRACS, FACS, FACNEM

Director, National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) President, International Council of Integrative Medicine (ICIM)

Author: ‘A guide to Evidence-Based Integrative and Complementary Medicine’ A clinical Guide to Integrative Oncology

INTRODUCTION

We live in an era where humans have developed more diets than have ever been known to mankind. The irony is that, on this journey of evolution, we are also now the heaviest in size known to mankind.

- Dr Arun Dhir,

Health and Wellness Reformist, Gastrointestinal Surgeon

If you want to lose weight effortlessly and keep it off, you need to feed the good bugs.

No, not the ones that annoy us. By bugs, I’m talking about the trillions of helpful bacteria that live in your gut and play a fundamental role in maintaining a healthy and happy body.

We live in a world of microscopic organisms – bugs that are in us, on us, and around us. These microbes inhabit just about every part of the human body, living on the skin, in the gut, and even up the nose. Ninety-nine percent of them, however, reside in the gut, where there’s a miniature world made up of one hundred trillion microscopic, non-human organisms – ten times more than the number of cells in the human body!

Imagine. One gram of poop contains more bacteria in it than the number of people on this planet! The total weight of the living mass of the gut flora in our gut is 1.3 kilos, and that, coincidentally, is the weight of the human brain, as well.

These microbes are composed of around 500 species, each with their own benefits, these ranging from breaking down your food and extracting nutrients to hunting for food pathogens and protecting you from colds and the flu – yes, as you guessed, the microbiome is a crucial component of the immune system.

The microbes we’re talking about are in charge of:

• Digesting our food by breaking it down into smaller parts

• Governing our appetite

• Producing crucial vitamins and nutrients

• Normalizing glucose levels

• Promoting nutrient absorption

• Controlling our metabolic rate, which greatly impacts weight

• Orchestrating our immune system and even producing natural antibiotics

• Regulating inflammation

• Influencing our moods

• Supporting mental clarity

• Balancing our hormones, and…

• Determining how our genes are expressed

Is your microbiome in good shape?

The answer lies in the balance of bad bacteria versus good bacteria. The bugs in our gut are like those