Weight loss and support

From family to friends to work colleagues there are are a number of people in your lives who are in a similar situation of trying to lose weight. Having support of people is incredibly important. From strategizing non-boring menus to organizing morning exercise groups, having support along the way of your journey to health and happiness can be very helpful to achieve your goals.

Do not be afraid to be aggessive in organizing this or apporaching other people who you feel comfortable broaching this subject. Others will have helpful hints for you as you will for them. At times, it is a senstive issue, but something simple as posting a sign or having a segment in a monthly newsletter that goes out to your company...feel free to be aggressive to reach out to others. Not only weill you help yourself, but your friends and colleagues will be helped as well.

Yesterday I was at the beach and saw a group of people exercising together. They seemed to be having great fun. Making exercise time fun or reducing the boredom of sticking to a high protein high vegetable dietary plan can be helped incredibly by having company/support along the way.

weight loss and support

Last night I attended the group meeting that occurred in our office Tuesday evenings. Kymberly Posner was the group leader and over the past number of months a small group gathered at the office to discuss issues that may be supprt/help for members of the group to share.

Along your pathway of weight loss, finding a person/people who are similarly sharing this mission can be very helpful. Support both logistically (exercising together) and psychologically are both vital elements that can enhance a person's weight loss efforts. When we feel "alone" in our efforts, the journey is often more difficult.

Seek out others who you know are in a weight losing mode and offer supprt systems...occasional meetings, forming an exercise group, sharing recipes, etc. Having support will make your weight loss efforts easier and more successful

weight loss and support

It is very helpful to have lots of support along the way during your weight loss efforts. From family members to friends to co-workers, their support can be immensely helpful. Connversely, their actions can be derailing to your efforts. Have you been around any group of people at dinner and be implored to eat a high-caloric food source? "Oh come on, s small piece of cake can't hurt you..." "You look great right now, you dont have to lose anymore weight." These types of lines are all-too familiar and usually come from friends or elderly family members.

Sometimes your weight loss efforts initimidate other people, especially the ones in your world who are overweight. If a dessert tray comes to a dinner table and people around you are ordering desserts and you do not, then some guilt forms in the minds of those ordering. Guilt because your demonstration of control highlights their lack of the same. So if you are coerced to have a dessert, then everyone feels happier.

Support those around you in their weight loss efforts and do not be afraid to boldly state to anyone trying to derail your efforts that "it is important for me to lose weight and I would appreciate your help in my efforts." If you find that despite this plea, your "freinds" still persist in trying to derail your efforts, are they really your freinds?

weight loss and support

One of the elements that helps a person's weight loss efforts is support. The support of family, friends, co-workers, etc. When the person trying to lose weight is being sabotaged by people around them, the results are not as aggressive. Whether it be the well-intentioned relative who says " Oh, just a little bit of this cake cant hurt you!"..to the other relatives or "friends" who say..."You are losing too much weight....you dont need to lose anymore"...people around us will be influencing our weight loss efforts.

Try to recruit others to join your efforts and try to hang out with them...perhaps friends, co-workers, family members who need/want to lose weight. Team up with them on this effort. By surrounding yourself with people who SUPPORT your efforts (as you are supporting theirs) you will have a much better chance of success. Do not be afraid to put an invitation out to people you know who would benefit from weight loss to join you...whether it be exchanging recipes to having a workout partner...having support will help lots.

Supporting Our Patients

Weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight is complex and individual ...

As we continue to grow and expand both our medical practice and weight loss program we understand, especially for my patients who have been with me for years (some twenty!), that there are and will be many changes to our practice which for some people can be unsettling. Our goal with these changes are to offer you more and more support in many different areas and would like to discuss these changes and services with you. For more information please check out our "event tab" and "chat room" on the website www.spdiet.com

We want to assure everyone that we are constantly thinking about how to meet everyone's individual needs and address all possible aspects of meeting and maintaining your weight loss goals. We had a patient who felt like the follow up visits, although they said worked to help her continue to lose weight, were a bit "impersonal" as she saw many new faces each week. I want everyone to know that for those of you who need and want more time and attention we offer that service to each of you as an extended "free" visit with our Regisitered Dietation. This extended visit is offered to you as often as weekly in addition to your weekly follow up visits. Our follow up visits will be about 5 - 10 minutes focusing on specific aspects of the program, we will check your bp, weight, answer any questions you have and help keep you motiviated.

Other services we offer include (we try to continually evaluate and add new services to support our patients so please let us know if there is a service you would like to see offered as part of our program):

*weekly follow up visits on site and now virtual to make sure you are able to stay focused on vacation, when you're out of town, and/or if you are out of the area
*extended one-on-one visits with our Registered Dietition (RD)
*monthly health and wellness seminars run by our Fitness consultant and RD
*free exercise classes Tuesday & Thursday evenings (meet at the office) from 6pm - 7:30pm
*Once a month group walk at Burke Lake Park
*Group walks NOW on Monday & Wednesdays at 6:00am (for early birds)
*Starting in September group counseling sessions!!!
**Giving Back** In February 2010 we are offering a Free Community Program based on financial need and health criteria - We are working now to partner with community businesses so that 5 individuals a month may participate in our "Weight Loss & Work Ready" program. We hope to have businesses offer job training and internships for those individuals in the program who are out of work.

In order to offer and support these services, continue to offer new services, and keep your in office wait time to a minium we must continue to hire train, and cross-train our staff. We appreciate your patience as new staff members are being trained and feel free to always request to see myself, Donna, our PA, or the acting PA/NP or MD on site when you are in the office.

Also if you or any of your family members are looking for new opportunities please contact us as we have a few open positions in our office to include front desk support, nursing, and field sales.

Lastly, I want to thank each and everyone of you for helping us fine-tune our program to esnure that we are providing the very best weight loss program in the entire area. Your feedback/suggestions etc are VERY important to us. Please e-mail us or call us at 703-866-4144.

weight loss and groups

First, thanks Mary for reporting in and I am glad you are following this daily! Hope it helps your efforts!

Many people, when they embark on a weight loss effort would rather not tell anyone else, least if little-no success is achieved, then there is less embarrassment about being seen as a "failure".

I try very hard to have my patients be very upfront with everyone about their weight lossefforts, as often, your family and friends, once they know this, will be more apt to bea help as opposed to a saboteur. If your family knows you are trying to lose weight, they will be encouraging, and perhaps select restaurants and offer food choices at their houses that would be supportive of your efforts. Also, witht he overweight rate in the US being 67%, I would bet there are some other family members and friends who need to lose weight , and your mission will inspire them to also move forward to become healthier.

Weight Watchers and other organizations offer group meetings for support. Some people thrive on this and others find it abhorrent to be with other people in a group. My daughter, Kymberly, is currently a graduate student at George Mason in a counseling program. Her undergraduate degree is in criminal justice. Not that eating an Oreo is a criminal act, but Kymberly has excelled at facilitating group meetings, and we are going to offer some group meetings in the near future. More details will follow both here and at the office.

Your friends, family and certainly your family here at Serotonin-Plus can be a great support system for you during your efforts. If your goal was to gain weight (some actors/actresses need to do this for movie roles) no support is needed at all..do what is fun and do what the body tells you to do. However, to lose weight, lots of support is needed.

"buddying up"

Yesterday we entered a number of people into our program who came in as couples...a mother/daughter and then friends. Having support along the way is very important, and clearly, having a relative or friend start their effort at the same time can be quite helpful. It is difficult to embark on a weight loss effort when everyone around you is not paying attention to calrie counts, not planning exercise time, etc. Having one or several people who are on the same mission as you will help your efforts.

Please do not be embarrassed to seek out people to work out with, discuss recipes , exchange ideas as to how to make it more fun to lose weight. With Americans having a 67% overweight rate, I know there are people at work, church, family members etc. who want to lose weight.

Your good doctor turns 53 today. Do you notice that the older we get, the less excited we are about our birthdays???

weight loss and support

Last week I saw a patient who told me her week was difficult because she traveled home and her family weas putting out lots of food sources that were not conducive with her dietary strategy and hardly any foods that were compatible. I asked her if she had told her family prior to coming out that she was on a weight loss effort and she said "no". I asked why, and her reply was something to this effect: "I didn't want them to know that I was trying to lose weight because if I am not successful, they will look down on me as a failure because I have tried so many times before..."

I tried to convince her otherwise, meaning that a family that loves their relative will want that person as healthy as possible. Supporting their weight loss efforts would be the most likely response. The point here is you should not be embarrassed, ashamed or otherwise in any way "clandestine" about your efforts. Be very forthright in telling your family an d friends that you are very exciteed about losing weight and you would love their help in this quest. When travling to other people's homes, if they know you are on a weight loss effort, I would bet they would have some healthier choices at the dinner table for you. Your friends and family could be a hge support for you and a great resource. Do not hide your efforts..tell them! They wil be happy for your choice and will do their best to help.

weight loss and support

A very frequent question I get from a potential patient during a consultation about our program is this: "How many of your patients keep the weight off once they lose it?".

The answer to this is I cannot provide an exact percentage because many people when they leave our rpgram do not stay in touch with us to keep us up-to-date on their weight. I do know that weekly we have patients who return to us for help because they did put weight back on since they left our program.

As I tell everyone when they enter the program, it takes NO effort to gain weight...do what is fun and do what the body tells you to do, and almost everyone of us would gain weight. To lose weight requires planning, strategizing and going somewhat against human nature. We are naturally and instinctually "wired" to be a weight gaining specie. Least you doubt that, ask yourself whether a piece of cheesecake tastes better than a carrot stick or ask yourself whether you find yourself craving chocolates and carbs or craving broccoli.

To lose weight and keep the weight off requires a behavioral change and not just a "diet". There is no finish line to your efforts and this is a frustrating concept because quite frankly the act of losing weight is not "fun". Your reward is being healthier, perhaps getting off of some medications, looking yournger, having more energy, wearing more fashionable clothes etc. But these are not immediate gratification rewards and to an extent, we as humans look for immediate gratification...and eating a high-caloric food source is an immediate reward.

The Serotonin-Plus Weight Loss center offers a number of supportive tools to help you maintain that weight loss. One of these tools is what you are reading now...I am trying to use this blog to get into your head daily....if I can make you think about weight loss issues, you will be more apt to plan and strategize your efforts. When we stop thinking about it is when we get into trouble bcause we will find ourselves drifting back to old behavior patterns. Another tool is the fine and dedicated staff we have to answer your questions or concerns. Send us an e-mail or call and Robin, our Johns Hopkins trained registered dietician or Donna, oru excellent PA or me (the old doctor) will answer you. More tools will include a chat room that we are setting up at: www.spdiet.com. We are trying very hard to create a supportive community where you can exhange ideas, recipes, get guidance from Robin, etc. We also strongly encourage you to come to our clinic and use our scale. This doesnt cost you a penny, yet it may produce a psychological "accountability" that will help you stay focused.

Also, as I have mentioned numerous times before, record your weight once a week and if that weight ever goes up by more than 6 pounds from when you left out program, pick up the phone and call us. This would be a one time visit...not another 12 week program to help you refocus and retool. If you do this, there is no way than any of our patients could ever put back on 10, 20, 30 or even more pounds back on.

Sorry for the long blog this morning...just wanted you all to know that we are trying our best to ensure that all the effort, time and $$$ you put into your weight loss efforts will not somehow go to naught by losing focus. We are here for you in lots of ways!!!!

weight loss and support

There is no question that the success in achieving weight loss is helped dramatically by support along the way. Clearly, when you are coming in for your visits, we try very hard to be a major support system for you. We are striving to find ways of providing support when your formal visits end. Toward that goal, we are developing a "chat room" for our website...this should be "live" in a few weeks. We encourage you to check our website: www.spdiet.com and when the chat room becomes active, please feel free to participate in such things as posting recipes for meals that lack boredom, yet comply with your dietary goals, discussing challenges, such as business travel and how to successfully navigate around the treacherous times, etc. Also, please remember that we have brought on board Robin Haaland, a Johns Hopkins trained Registered Dietician who is available for your queries. Robin will be monitoring the chat room and answer questions.

Also, please remember our PATIENT APPRECIATION DAYS ...SATURDAYS....at the office...10AM-2PM.

Support and weight loss

We had a physician visitor in last week from Arizona who is contemplating bringing our program to his very busy primary care practice. He shadowed me and Linda on a few patient visits and I was gratified greatly to hear our patients voice some very positive comments about our program. Universally, everyone he spoke to said that they felt positive support from all of us...nurses, front staff, Linda, and me. Even if there was a difficult week, they still felt there was no "value judgement" or negative attitude given to them.

Positive encouragement is a very important aspect to helping someone lose weight. Whether it be your spouse, your friend, child...maintaining the positive environment is a vital component to long-term success. We have a number of people to this day who feel comelled to cancel their weekly appointment if they gained weight. They know inherently that no one here will admonish them or make them feel bad about this. However, there is some psychological desire to be successful in front of others, most notably the doctor they are paying. These are the exact weeks we need to see the patient and help them through the issues that are making their weight loss efforts difficult.

Stay positive and realize that not every week will show aggressive weight loss. In every war, there are battles that are lost, but if we maintain the energy and positive support, we will have many more successful weeks than we will less than successful!

starting out...

Just wanted to remind eveyone that on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 9am we are meeting at the Mini golf area at Burke Lake Park for a walk/run around the lake...for those of you who have not been there, Burke Lake Park is off of route 123 in Fairfax Station There is a 4.5 mile trail around the lake and we will be meeting at 9...this is not a race so please do not feel you have to either walk fast or run...we are just trying to kick-off our pre-holiday season reminder for exercise after the summer. Sometimes people's activity levels fall off after summer ends and we want everyone to keep it up!!! Come out and join us...will be lots of fun...bring friends/family!!!

Yesterday we went to Ft. Belvoir to provide a health a wellness seminar about weight loss. The health activities' director used to have Weight Watchers come in but due to a waning interest in the attendees, Serotonin -Plus was invited to provide this lecture series.

Around the table I saw a number of people who were just starting out with their weight loss efforts. What I saw was an almost universal look of frustration and sadness. I felt that I needed to pump them up with my first talk dwelling on taking this "one day at a time"...establishing realistic goals, and learning to develop reward systems not based on food. Sometimes, when people are starting out, it seemingly appears impossible to reach the weight loss goals that people strive for. Most of you reading this blog have achieved lots of weight loss and you know that now you look at things a bit different than when you first started your efforts. Success breeds success. The point here is that if you know anyone who is about to embark on weight loss efforts, they need the positive support of friends and family to help them not feel that the task is impossible to achieve.

Weight Loss and Having Support

I know we have touched on this before but the entry of two women into our program made me think that this is a good topic to be broguth up again: Support with another person in your weight loss efforts. When embarking on a weight loss initiative, having someone join you in these efforts can be invaluable in reaching your goals. Often, friends and family are well-meaning sabotours who will try to push food and alocohol on you during your efforts. Having a friend or family member join you allows you to mutually feed off each other's energy to make the right choices and not be distracted from your goals.

I saw how the ladies yesterday had already set up supportive walks with each other, exchanging recipes, scheduled talks with each other daily to encourage each other, etc.

It is difficult to approach an overweight friend or coworker about weight issues because of the sensitivity of such a topis. However, think of it as actually helping prolong the life and quality of life for someone who is important to you. Having support in your efforts can be very helpful.