DIET

     Is diet important?  Absolutely.  We stress high protein, low carbohydrate, low fat eating for most patients.  Your calorie intake is the single best way to lose the extra weight and to control your weight.

     We have a licensed certified nutritionist, Andrea Conner, who will meet with our patients initially and help them create a personalized meal program that will work for them.  Andrea will then follow-up with patients to make sure that they are staying within their prescribed meal program.

     In general, we place little emphasis on calorie counting, exchange lists and specific diets.  Most people with an active busy lifetsyle do not have time to learn and mainatin thes kinds of regimens.  Any program needs to be easy and simple and in line with your lifestyle or you will not be compliant for the rest of your life.  You need to keep the weight under control but you also need to be able to live and enjoy your life as much as you can. Or else, what is the point?

     We encourage sensible eating with helpful hints, guidelines and recommendations for meals.  For those who prefer to count calories and grams of food, we have take out pamphlets to make that easier.  We offer high protein snack bars from Bariatrix.  These are the best we have found nutritionally.  We also have high protein, low carbohydrate meal replacement shakes from HMR. We provide samples for our patients to try.

EXERCISE

     Exercise is important for fitness and for cardiovascular benefits, but it is a terrible means of weight control or weight loss.  Take a look at this exercise/calorie table.  Let's look at some examples from the table.  In order to lose one (1) pound of fat you would need to:

     Now imagine doing this 3-5 times a week to lose 3-5 pounds a week.  You would have to devote yourself to be a professional athlete to do this!

     Now we encourage exercise in any form.  While all studies and common sense indicate that exercise has very little effect on weight loss, major benefits include cardiovascular conditioning, body toning, lowering of cholesterol and blood pressure, increasing HDL and sense of well being.  It is great for your general health and increasing the body's production of testostosterone, growth hormone, and endorphins which help you look young, feel good, and look good.  Increased muscle tone means that your body just fits tighter and better into itself.  So please exercise, exercise, exercise.