why is this so hard?

It should be simple, right, just eat less calories than you burn; eat healthy food, exercise, and you will lose the pounds. It sounds straightforward, very clean, very easy. Your doctor has told you a dozen times, just eat a little less, exercise a little more, and your going to lose weight. So you try to follow these instructions, you cut back, take the stairs more often, go to the gymn, and then you get on the scale; nothing is happening, body weight is not budging; it does not work.
Look around America, something like 95% of all adults are overweight, over 40% are obese, depending on which statistics you read. It adds up to a lot of people struggling. Weight loss is not easy.
So really, why is this so hard? As a physician that specializes in weight loss, and has treated hundreds of patients, I will tell you that the answer is because weight loss is not simple. It is actually really hard and really complicated. And the reason is, that your body has many many mechanisms to prevent you from losing weight, and many mechanisms to make you gain weight. Your body does not know that your obesity is unhealthy, it has no emotional IQ to understand that you are unhappy, that overweight or obesity is affecting your life, your job, your energy. What your body does have is a set point, an internal thermostat of what it “thinks” your normal weight is, which is a two to three pound range, and it wants you to stay exactly at this point.
How does your body manipulate you to prevent weight loss? The answer is that there are many mechanisms; one example is that there are cells in your body which secrete a nasty hormone called a Ghrelin, which travels to the brain, and tells you that you are hungry, or have cravings, or have the munchies. There is a different hormone which slows down your metabolism, so if you eat less, you burn less calories. Yet another hormone makes your cells insulin resistant, so carbs you eat go straight into fat and do not get used by, for example, by muscle cells; and then it turns out that there are many different types of fat cells, that gobble up calories, so you gain weight really easily. To make matters worse, researchers are constantly discovering new chemicals and hormones in your body, that prevent you from losing weight.
And then to make the entire process even more confusing, we are all different in terms of how we metabolize food. I am certain you have friends that can go out and devour three slices of pizza or more, followed by a few beers, and never seem to gain an ounce; while if you eat one slim piece of thin crust pizza, on the scale the next day you will see a one to two pound weight gain. It’s hard, it’s confusing, and it’s not fair.
So is it hopeless, can your dream of being a slim and healthy person become a reality? The answer is yes. But it begins with you deciding you are ready to make a change, a commitment to yourself and your body, and that at times it will not be easy. Here at Balance Medical Weight Loss, we will analyze your internal body chemistry with a very comprehensive blood test, we will design a food program individualized to you (all your meals will be bought in a grocery store, not in boxes or powders from us) and we will hold your hand every step of the way. You will get an education in our program, on subjects like what are Ghrelins and Leptins, Thylakoids, the glycemic index, and how to manage the constant triggers around you, like holidays, birthdays, traveling, and stresses. We can help you, but it has to be your decision, you have to be mentally ready to make a change. When you are ready for this, please call us, we are here and waiting.

Permanent Weight Loss

Our goal here at Balance Medical Weight Loss, is not only for you to lose weight, but to lose it permanently. You cannot be standing on your grave, and still be dieting. So how do you do this, lose weight permanently? You do this in two ways: learning how to eat correctly for YOUR body, and making a commitment to changing how you eat and approach food permanently.
Just today I got a letter from a local endocrinologist medical doctor, regarding a patient who lost about 190 pounds in our program, about 10 years ago. I remember this man I shall name Scott (not his real name) like it was yesterday; He came in dragging himself along, with the help of a walker, which had wheels, and which he leaned on heavily; he was almost 200 lbs overweight, was an insulin dependent diabetic on 75 units of insulin at night, and more at meal time; he had heart disease and was on a blood thinner called Coumadin because of his high risk of getting blood clots; he looked tired, with a defeated look on his face because he felt locked into a body that he could not control and which made him feel awful all the time. His legs were swollen with varicosities, he had high blood pressure, and he slept badly in a chair at night, because lying down made him short of breath. My staff did not like him because he was rude and cranky. (who wouldn’t be with all those diseases going on inside.)

Today, the endocrinologist tells me, in her letter, he has maintained his 190 Lbs weight loss (and it has been more than 10 years). She states that his Hemoglobin A1C is down to 5.6 so he not only is cured of his diabetes, he is not even pre-diabetic. He is off all insulin; He has blood work with a low LDL and hi HDL which means his heart is very protected with good fats and the bad fats are no longer at a level for risk of a heart attack; he exercises daily, which seems unbelievable given that he could barely walk before; AND he just had 13 lbs of skin surgically removed because he has lost so much weight that he had to get rid of all this dead skin. His life has changed, he is so much happier, and he not only will live longer, he will live a much higher quality of life; his grandson sent me a letter, thanking me for saving his grandfather.
But the bottom line is that Scott has not only made a life style change, he has made a permanent commitment to never going back to his old way of eating. But it is not hard, he never feels hungry, he has more energy, he does not want to go back to the old toxic foods, because his precious health is worth everything. He has lived this first hand, and he is never going back down that road.
So if you are reading this, maybe you don’t have all these terrible diseases that Scott used to have. Maybe you are just struggling with your weight and are, for now, otherwise healthy. But being overweight and obese is eventually NOT healthy. You need to learn what to eat, and you need to learn what works for you personally. And this is what we really focus on here at Balance Medical Weight Loss, finding the right food program for you; we will work on this, we will help you every step of the way, and you will learn how your body works, which is absolutely not the same for everybody. And finally, what I care most about is that once the weight is gone, you never have to go back and do this again. This must be a permanent weight loss.

what percentage of patients in the Balance Medical Weight Loss Program lose weight?

A patient called our office this past week, to inquire about the program. At the end of the conversation with my staff, she asked, “what percentage of patients in your program lose weight?” When I heard this question, I was stunned; I thought about it for a moment, and then told my consultant to tell her “all of our patients lose weight.” When you come to our office, you are paying for a service, and the service we give you is to teach you what to eat, and how to lose weight; if we did not give you this service, we would not be in business, so yes, all of our patients lose weight.

I frequently read new articles on the subject of weight loss; I see these in almost every magazine and newspaper, books, blogs, twitters, online comments and on and on, and am fascinated by the so called “experts” idea of how to lose weight; there is the 30 day weight loss plan. Why thirty days, I wonder, why not 25, or fifty? Why any time deadline at all? Are patients who need to lose 200 lbs on the same time line as those who need to lose 20 lbs? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Then there is the low carb, hi fat and hi protein diet, the all complex carbs diet, the boot camp exercise 2 to 4 hours a day diet, the eat less than 600 calories per day, and on and on, all the plans out there. Then there are specific recommendations, such as eat piles of nuts, eat no nuts, eat complex grains three to five times per day; never eat starches at all; eat all the fat and protein you want as long as you eat no carbs, count your calories, dont count calories, avoid watermelon and pineapple. It is so confusing, it is a wonder anyone ever loses any weight at all.

So this is what I want to say about weight loss. Medical care and treatment, in the end is very simple; it either works or it does not work. I would tell you if you are on a program and you are not losing weight, then the program is incorrect. IF you have lost a lot of weight on a program and then regained it all, that is not a success. Success is losing it and keeping it off. In our program, I cannot fudge the results we get, I have no magical power over the scale you step on, that will show you have lost weight. The reason our office is so busy, is because the patients here are losing weight, and consistently.

Secondly, there is no formula for weight loss. Cutting out all carbs, eating piles of nuts, eating lots of complex carbs, eating no carbs at all, none of these formulas will work. Why? Because each one of us is unique and different in how we metabolize food. A diabetic is different from a non diabetic. A 60 year old is different from a 20 year old. A patient with PCOS is different from a woman who does not have this. And this is probably the biggest reason that most weight loss programs fail. Because there is no generic formula, no one size fits all weight loss plan. There is only you.

Patients like you come to our office, because you want to know what program will work for you personally. And this is exactly what we give you; and we make changes to this program, as needed, as you lose weight. We help you through plateaus, challenges in your life involving food, answer questions, and teach you an enormous amount of information.
So if you are looking for gimmicks, juices, general ideas and generic formulas, do not come to our clinic. It is not what we do. But if you are looking to find the right answer for your personal body, we invite you to join. And you will be eating healthy foods, from the grocery store. It does not matter if you need to lose 5 lbs or 300 lbs, we have patients in all sizes, and we will help you. This is a program about true weight loss, and permanent weight loss. You have to be ready to make the commitment to your health, and you will have to be mindful about what you eat. But if you are wondering that same question, what percentage of patients in the Balance Weight Loss Program lose weight, the answer is all of our patients lose weight.

Obesity, Overweight is complex

It should be so simple; calories in, calories out. If you eat more than you burn, you gain weight, if you eat less than you burn, you lose weight. Right? Wrong.

Obesity and overweight are counterintuitive; So here are some facts about what they are NOT:

-Obesity and overweight hide in plain site: Most obesity is NOT recognized by physicians or the public.
-Most obesity is NOT in America.
-Overweight and Obesity did NOT start in the past 30 years.

-Most doctors do NOT know how to treat obese and overweight patients and are NOT trained to do this.
-It is NOT a problem of simply eating too much.
-it is NOT a single disorder:
there are possible 100 or more clinically meaningful subtypes
this recognition is essential to solving the problem
-Almost 100% of all obese and overweight patients fail when trying to lose weight on their own. Patients need to be in a weight loss program for accountability and guidance.

Obesity and Overweight are counterintuitive: So here are some facts about what they ARE:

The actual chemical combination of foods is vitally important to losing weight.
The time of day you eat your meals is important.

We do not all process food the same way.
You can lose weight at any age.

There are many factors that affect your weight besides your calorie intake.
Being overweight IS a chronic disease, much like asthma or hypertension; but it CAN be controlled and treated.

Losing weight on the right diet WILL give you many more years of healthy life, no matter how old you are when you start. It is never too late.

Eating the right diet and losing weight can improve and sometimes cure many chronic illnesses, including depression, chronic fatigue, and other diseases.

If you are ready to lose weight, we would be happy to help you; we would welcome you into our Balance Weight Management Program. Learn the art of clean eating while losing weight. Please give us a call when you are ready to begin.

NEW YEAR, NEW YOU

It’s 2016, time for New Years resolutions. As you might have guessed, one of the most common resolutions in America is, “this year I am really going to lose that weight.” As it turns out, this is actually a really good resolution. Because, just as the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Years is the hardest time of year to lose weight, there are unhealthy foods everywhere and in abundance, by January 1 most of us have had enough. We are ready to give up the egg-nog and desserts and start some “clean eating.” January to March is the best time of year to lose weight; there are very few holidays or distractions, our lives are in a predictable routine, it’s the dead of winter, so we can really focus on ourselves and what we are putting into our bodies (in the way of food.) We can get down to the business of slimming down.
But I would like you to rethink this resolution, to re-word your thought. Instead of deciding to lose weight, I would like you to decide to make a lifestyle change. Instead of choosing to exercising more, I would like you to decide to find a form of exercise you really enjoy. In other words, try not to aim for the temporary fix, go for the permanent change. Because in your heart, this is what you really want. When you work really hard, take off 10 pounds or more, and then go right back to your old habits of unhealthy eating, you regain every pound, and so this is a temporary fix; this is “doing a great big circle.” You have made this great effort, lost a lot of weight, but then regained it all and ended right back where you started. This is exactly what you do not want.
So how do you make a permanent life style change, get this weight off forever? It turns out, there are several stages needed to accomplish this. The first is you need to make the decision that you really want to lose weight. It does not mean just wanting it, it means deciding you are really ready to commit to doing it. Think about how much weight you want to lose, then think about how long you think it should take to lose this weight. For example, if you have about 50 pounds to lose, this would take most people about 4 to 6 months to lose. Are you ready to commit to working at this for the next 6 months?
Next you will need the correct information on how to lose the weight. What should I be eating? How much should I be exercising, and what form of exercise should I be doing? Everywhere in America there are self proclaimed experts on weight loss. People with no medical training whatsoever give talk shows and write books on how to lose weight, sometimes the information is incorrect, and sometimes it is partially correct. Some people who are exercise gurus think that if everyone just did what they do, ate what they ate, then that person would be slim. This is actually NOT true, because we are NOT all the same, we do NOT all process food the same way.
Overall, the information is confusing and contradictory. The reason is, that each one of us is a separate and specific individual, with a different metabolism. You need a program designed specifically to your body, your hormonal chemistry, and your metabolism.
I suggest you sign up with a program directed by someone with a medical background, who really understands the hormonal control of weight, and how your hunger hormones (leptins and ghrelins) as well as fat burning/creating hormones affect your weight. Here at Balance Medical Weight Loss, this is exactly what we do. We have patients here who need to lose 5 lbs, but just do not know what to eat, and we have patients who need to lose 400lbs, and we have people with every need in between this. We design programs specific to each person.
Finally, you need to be enrolled in a program. Much as it would be wonderful for each patient to simply obtain the right diet and go home and follow it, and then get to your goal weight on your own, all the studies show that this is not possible and this does not happen. Patients need accountability and they need guidance. You need to come for visits to the program at least every two weeks, weigh in, discuss your struggles, and get some instruction. What happens when you do this, is that you hit “goal posts.” You lose 4 lbs, and then we help you figure out how to lose the next 4 lbs. Here at Balance, we review your program, we make changes if necessary, we discuss how you are going to move forward, and we give teaching lessons on many relevant subjects. (such as how to handle stress eating, for example).
So it is the New Year. It is a great time for new starts. I encourage you to make that commitment and invest in yourself. Decide, not to lose weight, but to make that life style change. Call Balance Medical Weight loss for your first appointment and we will really set some goals, and by spring, you can be a whole new person. Its a New Year, you can become a new you.