The Laura Dowling Experience

This week Laura sits down with Dr John Loy, one of the busiest weight-loss surgeons working between Ireland and the UK. He grew up behind the bar of a family pub in County Down, which he says was the best training in medicine he ever had, before a chance meeting in New York changed how he thinks about the whole job.

It's a warm, funny and genuinely eye-opening conversation about obesity as a disease rather than a choice, and about the person on the other side of the desk. John explains why more than half of his patients cry at their first appointment, why he never asks how much weight they've lost, and why the goals that matter are seeing your own child's First Communion from behind the camera — not the number on the scales.

He also gives one of the clearest explanations you'll hear of how weight-loss surgery actually works - the gastric balloon, the sleeve and the bypass - why a bypass is like "a free GLP-1 injection every day for life", and why, despite the rise of the weight-loss injections, demand for surgery is climbing rather than falling.

🔑 Key Points

Obesity is a disease, not a choice
John argues it should be treated in stages, like cancer, and that denying people care on a BMI cut-off is simply wrong.

A gastric bypass is like "a free GLP-1 injection for life"
The surgery isn't just about a smaller stomach; it changes the gut hormones that tell your brain you're full.

The weight-loss injections haven't ended surgery — the opposite
Many patients try the injections first, stall or can't afford them, and find a sleeve pays for itself within a few years.

Three procedures, three different jobs
The swallowable balloon, the sleeve and the bypass each suit a different stage — John explains who each one is for.

Blood sugar settles before the weight comes off
Diabetes can resolve within days of surgery, long before any weight is lost — proof of how closely the gut and brain talk.

The best consultation starts with "why are you here?"
Rather than judging, John asks patients their story — and finds the roots often reach right back to childhood.

Non-scale victories are what matter
He never asks how much weight a patient has lost; he asks whether they can finally take their kids to Disney World.

A childhood in the pub was the best training he ever had
Learning to talk to people across a bar counter, he says, taught him more about medicine than any exam.

📚 Resources

Auralia
Dr John Loy's clinic in Dublin, offering gastric sleeve, bypass and balloon procedures

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction
00:50 — The cruise-ship patient who thought it was his last trip
04:23 — Why half his patients cry at the first appointment
05:20 — Obesity: the last acceptable prejudice
06:52 — From a County Tyrone pub to the operating theatre
09:29 — The gut-brain link: why blood sugar settles first
10:20 — Sleeve, bypass and "a free GLP-1 for life"
10:48 — Are the injections ending surgery? The opposite
13:47 — The balloon, the sleeve and the bypass explained
19:42 — New York and the philosophy of surgery
22:52 — Non-scale victories and the surgical-cat tattoo
34:34 — Ikigai, travel and the meaning of life
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, broadcaster and mental health advocate Keith Walsh shares what it was like to be diagnosed with ADHD in his late forties — and how going through his son's assessment led to his own.

He's honest and funny about what undiagnosed ADHD looked like day to day, the small systems he built to cope, and why a diagnosis can feel like relief rather than a label.

🔑Key Points
• How going through his son's assessment led to his own diagnosis
• The everyday reality of undiagnosed adult ADHD
• Why a diagnosis can feel like relief rather than a label
• The small systems that helped him cope

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ahead of National Sisters Day on Sunday 2 August, Laura hands the mic to the one guest who has known her longest - her younger sister Rachel, making her podcast debut. What follows is less an interview than a lifetime of shared history: the smear tests they were both booked in for that morning, Laura's abandoned marathon training, the running mishap Rachel has never been allowed to live down, and the commentary only a sister can give.

Then, halfway through, Laura mentions something she assumed Rachel already knew - that their dad wasn't there when she was born. He was at home with the other two. Rachel had no idea. What happens next is the reason this one is worth listening to: Laura calls their mother into the studio, live, to confirm it.

From there it's the full archive — the crooked teeth and the orthodontist bill that nearly cost their parents the house, the green gabardine Laura convinced her was school uniform, growing up around a mother working night shifts as a midwife, and the football trials Rachel was told she'd have been sent to if she'd been a boy. Underneath the slagging is the thing sisters rarely say out loud, and by the end they both say it.

If you have a sister, this is one to send her before Sunday.

🔑Key Points

Some family history only surfaces by accident
Rachel had never been told her father missed her birth — it came out mid-conversation, not through any big reveal.

Ask the person who was actually there
Rather than leave it hanging, Laura brought their mother into the room to confirm the story first-hand.

Sisters keep the receipts
Years on, the teeth, the gabardine and the running stories are all still admissible evidence.

Childhood teasing lands differently in hindsight
The stories that were mortifying at the time are the ones they now tell most fondly.

Growing up in an older sister's shadow shapes you
Hand-me-downs, comparisons and a very particular sense of humour come with the territory.

Girls were quietly steered away from sport
Rachel was told that if she'd been a boy she'd have been sent for trials — a throwaway line that stayed with her.

A parent's shift work sets the tone of a house
Their mother working nights as a midwife shaped how the siblings behaved, argued and looked after each other.

Slagging can be its own love language
As they put it themselves, it was mostly slagging — sprinkled with a lot of love.

📚Resources

CervicalCheck
Ireland's free cervical screening programme

ADHD Ireland
Support and information on adult ADHD

⏱️Timestamps

01:00 Why this one — National Sisters Day, and Rachel's debut
02:10 Both booked in for smear tests on the same morning
04:05 Laura's abandoned marathon training — and Rachel's running mishap
11:23 "Dad wasn't even there for your birth" — Rachel finds out
12:02 Laura calls their mother into the studio to confirm it
15:14 A female version of Rod Stewart: the crooked-teeth years
16:49 The gabardine that wasn't school uniform
19:45 Mark's first day at school — and Laura stepping in
24:40 "If you'd been a boy, you'd have been sent to trials"
27:00 What having a sister teaches you about conflict
34:13 Slagging, sprinkled with a lot of love
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bitesize moment pulled from the Laura Dowling Experience back catalogue, psychiatric nurse and intuitive eating counsellor Sinéad Crowe explains what intuitive eating really is — a way of caring for yourself, not another set of rules.

She shares why letting go of the diet mentality comes first, and how making peace with food can quiet years of guilt and reconnect you with your body's own signals.

🔑Key Points
• What intuitive eating actually means (a self-care framework, not a diet)
• Why "rejecting the diet mentality" is the starting point
• How making peace with food can ease guilt around eating
• Reconnecting with the body's own signals

💛 If anything here resonates, you're not alone. In Ireland, Bodywhys, the Eating Disorders Association of Ireland (bodywhys.ie), offers support and information.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here.
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bob Cullen isn't a doctor or a traditional academic — he's a man who spent his early life around violence and addiction, spent years in prison, and has spent the time since trying to understand where that violence actually comes from. Now finishing a master's and preparing to start a PhD, he leads the Success Stories Programme, running workshops with men — including in prisons and on probation — about patriarchy, masculinity and the beliefs that quietly shape how boys become men.

In this conversation, Bob and Laura trace violence back to its roots: the way boys are taught that emotion is weakness, how shame and poverty drive harm, and why Bob believes we can't reduce violence against women without understanding masculinity itself. He's honest about the misogyny he still hears from men when no women are around, and clear that shaming men or simply telling them to "talk more" misses how the harm is learned in the first place.

The episode also turns inward. Bob speaks openly about the drugs, the self-harm and the years he couldn't look at himself in the mirror, and about the education, meditation and steady relationships that slowly turned things around. It closes on regret, accountability and self-forgiveness — and why, after all the work he's done, he still chooses to hold on to some of the guilt he carries.

Please note: this episode discusses violence, prison, abuse, misogyny and suicide, and may be difficult to listen to. Support links are included below.

🔑 Key Points

Violence has roots we rarely look at
Bob argues we'll never reduce violence against women by focusing on it alone — it has to be traced back to patriarchy and how masculinity is formed.

Boys learn early that emotion is weakness
From "boys don't cry" to the fear of being called weak by friends, boys are taught to suppress feeling and to prove they'll use violence if needed.

Shame is one of the biggest drivers of violence
Drawing on James Gilligan's work, Bob links most harm to shame, poverty and exposure to violence, and notes people are usually victims before they become perpetrators.

Misogyny didn't start with social media
He traces how men talk about women when none are around back through history, rather than blaming figures like Andrew Tate alone.

"Just get men talking" isn't enough
Bob explains why shaming men or telling them to open up misses how the harm is learned, and why his work is built on accountability and community instead.

Change came through education and connection
Getting clean in prison, meditation, journaling and a teacher named Andrea opened a path into study, feminism and the Success Stories work he now leads.

Accountability over easy self-forgiveness
Bob speaks honestly about the guilt he still carries, and why he chooses to hold it: not to punish himself, but as a reminder of who he doesn't want to become.

📚 Resources

Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes — James Gilligan
On shame, poverty and the roots of violence.

The Will to Change — bell hooks
On men, masculinity and love.

The Patriarchs — Angela Saini
How patriarchy took hold.

Success Stories Programme
The anti-patriarchy, anti-violence programme Bob runs with men.

Samaritans Ireland
Free 24/7 on 116 123.

Pieta
Free 24/7 crisis support on 1800 247 247.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction and the Success Stories Program
03:52 — Patriarchy, domination and masculinity
06:34 — Why focusing only on violence against women falls short
09:56 — "Boys don't cry" and the fear of weakness
12:45 — Shame, poverty and the roots of violence
13:40 — Misogyny's long history, from Pandora to Descartes
27:40 — Why "men just need to talk" isn't enough
32:56 — Victims before perpetrators
41:30 — Accountability, integrity and community
50:00 — Drugs, self-harm and going to prison
63:00 — The teacher who changed everything
79:23 — Regret, accountability and self-forgiveness
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.