My gastric bypass nearly killed me: Woman now has to eat 5,000 calories a day to stay alive



J ulie Dunbar, 51, had weight loss surgery after her weight hit 20st 7lb

Lost 14 stone in a year and became dangerously malnourished



Needed tube feeding and three more ops to partly undo stomach reduction

Now has illness resulting from severe malnourishment and lack of vitamins

Has to eat 5,000 calories a day to get enough nutrients to stay alive



A pub landlady who underwent a gastric bypass operation has become so thin she must eat a mountain of food every day to stay alive.

A rare complication of the slimming surgery caused Julie Dunbar’s body to stop absorbing the nutrients it needs.

In 12 months, her weight plummeted from 20st 7lbs to a skeletal 6st – and she ended up in hospital dangerously malnourished and close to death.

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Piling it high: Julie Dunbar has to eat 5,000 calories a day after weight loss surgery left her severely undernourished

Full-time job: Ms Dubar says her daily calorie requirement (pictured) means she is 'constantly eating' and spends at least £200 a week on food

Doctors told her the only solution was to eat 5,000 calories a day – more than double the recommended daily amount for women and far more than she ever used to eat – because her body can ingest only a fraction of the nutrients she takes in.

Her daily menu includes half a block of cheese, a packet of smoked salmon, a packet of biscuits, nuts, fruit, cake, a curry or shepherd’s pie for dinner and bags of sweets.

Miss Dunbar, 51, of Leeds, West Yorkshire, said: ‘It’s a full-time job. Our food bill is phenomenal. It must cost about £200 to feed me a week.

‘It was enjoyable at first but now it’s a pain and I hate it. Even if I don’t feel like it I still really need to eat.’

Ms Dunbar, 51, decided to have weight loss surgery after her weight crept up to 20st 7lb

Malnourished: Ms Dunbar's weight plummeted to 6st after surgery and she had to be fed through a tube



In 2010, Miss Dunbar paid £10,000 to have the biliopancreatic diversion with a duodenal switch operation at the private Spire Hospital in Leeds. In this type of weight-loss surgery a large part of the stomach is removed and the small intestine re-routed.

The object is to reduce the amount of time the body has to capture calories and absorb fat.

Following the operation, her weight dropped so quickly that her sister Karen, 50, was inspired to have the same procedure.

But while the sister’s weight levelled off at 10st, Miss Dunbar’s continued to drop at an alarming rate.



She said: ‘It was an absolutely awful time. In the pub, people looked at me and thought, “She is not going to make it”.

Then and now: She says she now eats far more than when she was overweight



‘My face was like a skeleton and it was totally sunken in. There wasn’t an ounce of flesh on me.’

She was so malnourished she developed Wernicke Encephalopathy, normally seen in alcoholics, people with HIV or those who have been starved, leaving her with memory loss and balance problems.

HER DAILY 5,000 CALORIE DIET

BREAKFAST: Three cups of coffee with milk

Two egg omelette with 175g of cheese (around about half a block)

Two yoghurts

Bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes DINNER:

Thai curry with rice, roast dinner, shepherd's pie SNACKS THROUGHOUT THE DAY: A whole packet of parma ham or smoked salmon

Chicken liver parfait on toast

Cheese and biscuits 100g of cashew nuts

Biscuits and chocolate Lots of fruit Water, milk and Lucozade Bags of s weets, especially jelly beans and fruit pastels

A huge piece of cake in the middle of the night

Miss Dunbar added: ‘Looking at pictures of myself is like looking at a picture of an African child that is starving. I’m just bones.

‘I went into hospital to lose weight and I came out as a different person.’

Miss Dunbar underwent two more operations last year to increase her stomach size to aid the intake of nutrients, but nothing else can be done to maintain a healthy weight apart from eating.

She is now a healthy eight stone but has to continue to eat as much as she can to ensure she continues to gain weight.

'To combat the illness, I need to absorb as much as I can from food,' she said.

'For example, whereas a normal person would consume about 30-40g of protein a day, I need to take 125g in to get my levels up to where they should be.

'It has completely changed me as a person.

'At the beginning I was really happy, because I was dropping lots of weight.



'But then it's supposed to stop and it just didn't.



'There was no light at the end of the tunnel - it was an absolutely awful time.