Why is losing weight so hard?
By Jon Avula MD, DiplABLM
People often think about losing weight with hitting the gym and going on an intense diet. You may have heard that losing weight all boils down to calories in versus calories out. It is rarely this simple since we all have unique circumstances BUT convincing medical research on weight loss shows that the most important factor for weight is what we eat. Exercise is crucial for maintaining a healthy weight and is important for overall health but is only a small part of getting to a weight loss goal. Other things like metabolism, stress hormones, sleep, and medications play a role too but our focus needs to be on our diet.
Have you ever tried to go on a diet? So many of us have tried different diets but have a lot of trouble sticking with it. It’s hard to even figure out which diet is the best – “Do I go with the Mediterranean, low salt, cut out carbs, Atkins, Southbeach?” There are so many questions and nutrition science studies are hard to interpret to answer many of these questions. Lifestyle Medicine can help us here by reframing the question into “are there foods that can help me become healthier? What can decrease my risk of having a heart attack or cancer and live longer?” And importantly, “can I eat this way for the next 10+ years?”
Our approach at A Healthier Way MD, is to review your current eating pattern in a judgement free way and make high impact changes. While it’s often not realistic to go from one extreme like the Standard American Diet (SAD) to another extreme of a whole food plant predominant diet, we will move towards a healthier diet in a sustainable way. We focus on foods that are high in fiber and water as these foods help keep you full, lower the daily calorie intake, lower sugars, and lower cholesterol. Our program can help with identifying foods that you can increase and help you work towards a healthier long term solution. We will even navigate the challenges of hitting a plateau of weight loss. Please reach out on our contact page to get started with an individual consult either in person or virtually so we can begin this journey together.
