weight loss and negotiations

Do you ever find yourself "negotiating" concerning your food intake? "Well, if I allow myself to eat that high-caloric food source I will do Phase 1 tomorrow." Or something like 'I can have those 3 glasses of wine but I will exercise more tomorrow."

Keeping awareness of your food/drink intake and offsetting derailing behaviors with a response the next day/week is a necessary part of long-term weight loss. There will be many situations where you will be confronted with challenging food sources and if you do not think through these issues, weight is certain to go back on.

I do not think you need to do this on a day-day basis...but as I have mentioned ad nauseum, WRITE your weight down on a clipboard next to your scale once a week and if that weight has gone up, have a PLAN as to what you are going to do to get this down again. We get into the most trouble with weight control when we stop thinking about it. We find ourselves resorting to old behavior problems and this results in weight gain.

Always try to keep on the forefront of your mind why you are choosing to be healthier and happier and implement the necessary steps to make yourself successful.

weight loss and changing your life

First, I want to thank the people for the very nice comments yesterday....well appreciated!

I want to ask each of you this question: How would your life change if you lost all the weight you want/need to lose?

Would you be healthier and life longer with a higher quality of life? Would you look lots younger? Would you be able to move around easier? Would you rid yourself of medications? Would people treat you differently? Would you have a greater potential for professional advancement? If you are single would your social life improve? If you play sports such as tennis or golf would your game improve? Would you have more energy? Would you fit into some of those very fashionable clothes that are in your closet that you cannot put on?

As yourself these questions and more....and if your crystal ball tells you through these answers that the entire quality of your life will change for the positive, then embrace your efforts to lose weight, look at food sources that would derail your efforts as saboteurs and do what it takes to become happier and healthier. It is an excellent choice to lose weight.

weight loss...."starting and stopping"

It never seems to be a good time to "start a diet"...whether it be a birthday coming up...a vacation trip..business travel etc...it is difficult to find a good time to "start".

As mentioned frequently, losing weight and keeping that weight off is NOT a "diet"..it is a life style change...and it is never easy to find the time to change lifestyle. We build our lifestyle based on many factors...how we were raised, the things that make us comfortable and happy, how we enjoy our leisure time etc. Part of our lifestyle certainly includes how we appraoch our eating behaviors.

It is ALWAYS a great time to start living a lifestyle that will make you healthier AND happier. The day to "start" was yesterday and the day to stop is NEVER...once you lose that weight you will smile lots more. You will have tremendous amount of energy and you will look years younger. All great stuff!

weight loss and restaurants

I know I have covered this topic but my experience last nite emphasizes this issue: Choose restaurants wisely if you are on a mission to lose weight. I went to a place called the Melting Pot....lots of people raved about it...you cook your own food at your table, their desserts are heavenly etc.

Okay, the famous food critic, Posner, will give you his review: BAD

I always tell my patients if you are going to ingest food or drink sources off of your dietary plan,make sure it is worth it..meaning high quality food...a very ezquisite dessert...a fine wine....not a three musketeers bad, Boones Farm wine or other cheap sources of calories.

Back to this restaurant...cheese appetizer in a pot with bread to put into it....cheese was no better than velvetta.....main course marginal....and then they tout these chocolate molten desserts with marshmellows and other things you dip into the chocolate....once again, I thought it was NOT worth the calories....

Anyway, I know this is only my opinion but I ask all of you to evaluate your choices of restaurants and try to leave off the lost places which are known solely for their high-caloric dishes...choose places that provide high quality protein in a wonderful atmosphere.

weight loss and holidays

Once again a reminder....you have/are working very hard to lose weight and feel healthier and happier. This weekend will present lots of challenges...every event you will attend will challenge you with food and alcohol choices that will tempt you to stray off your path of winning the battle.

Learning how to celebrate holidays and events without partaking of extraordinary amounts of high caloric food sources is difficult. Being around lots of people drinking alcohol and consuming tremendous amounts of calories and not joining in is very challenging.

At all times, try to remember why it is so important for you to lose weight and stay steadfast in your approach to not allowing in the derailing food choices that place you in an unhealthy situation.

Weight Loss and motivation

"There is no food that will taste as good as your weight loss feels"

I would like to take credit for that line but I lifted off of someone else....but I do like what this points out....Food is an IMMEDIATE gratification that perhaps gives us some sort of instantaneous "high" but then we tend to self-loathe as we gain weight and realize that the instant gratification is not worth the long-term consequences.

When you lose weight, you become healthier, higher self-confidence and self-esteem, look younger, fit into your sexy clothes again and you feel more energy...all of these feel GREAT and in fact MUCH better than the immediate "rush" we get from a food source.

Before ingesting a food source that you know will derail your efforts, think about the line above and repeat to yourself that statement...that food source does not taste nearly as good as the weight loss will feel.

weight loss and safety

An overweight person's main motivation to lose weighjt is to become healthier. Many people in our program have been recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, etc and they were told that weight loss will make these dangerous medical entities either resolve or be much better with weight loss.

It is unsafe to be overweight. Very unsafe. Aside from the diabetes/heart disease risk factors a number of cancers are more highly prevalent in overweight/obese people....breast, gastic, pancreatic and colon to name a few.

When I have new patients enter the program, much of the concern is about its' safety. Even more prominent are other physicians who, when they are approached by a patient about doing our program will tell them that "diet pills are unsafe and I dont know anything about that serotonin and it probbaly doesnt work."

I want to reassure everyone that after 8 years, 10,000-plus patient experience and being a board certified internal medicine doctor for 26 years, it is MUCH SAFER SHORT AND LONG TERM to be in a medically supervised program helping you lose weight than remaining overweight being administered multiple medications for the obesity co-morbidities. When people lose weight , their diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol improve dramatically. Looking at the risk/benefit ration of a weight loss effort under supervision even with prescription anorectic medications, it is not even close...losing weight under these circumstances is MUCH safrer than allowing to remain overweight with the co-morbidities.

So when a physician or self-professed knowledgable friend (lots of them now with the advent of the internet....makes everyone an expert, right?) tries to tell you that a weight loss program is "unsafe", think twice about the veracity of this.