manage weight
One of my yearly medical student classes I teach at Northwestern University is helping our future physicians learn behavior change strategies to improve their own health. Examples of targeted health behaviors may include not exercising regularly, not eating enough fruits and vegetables, eating too many sweets or fast food, not getting enough hours of sleep…
Your Saturday night outings may be the one day of the week when you let your guard down and don’t pay much attention to what or how much you eat. Though weekends are a time to unwind and have fun – they don’t have to derail all the progress you’ve made during the week. Dinners…
Healthy eating requires planning ahead. Though this does take some time, it doesn‘t have to be so time intensive. In this blog, I share some time-saving tips that help my family eat better and healthier. 1 – Try Convenient Apps for Shopping No time to go to the grocery store? Check out your neighborhood for…
I learned long ago that generic weight loss advice doesn’t work well for most people. That’s because managing weight is personal, influenced by your likes and dislikes, health goals and personal challenges. Different people have different struggles managing weight, depending on who they are and how they live their life. This applies whether or not…
As an obesity medicine physician, I have been on a mission to train health care professionals about providing obesity care in their practices. Most recently, I spoke at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress where the room was packed with colleagues wanting to learn about new obesity care treatments. The timing was perfect as…
When managing body weight, you’re probably laser-focused on how your weight is changing day to day or week to week. This most likely applies whether or not you’re also taking obesity medications. Though I advocate tracking body weight as a good self-monitoring tool, weight is only 1 metric of health. If you’re someone who loses motivation easily…
What does it mean to be healthy? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “health is not merely the absence of disease but is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” In Christina Caron’s recent New York Times article, When the Prescription is for a Dance Class, not a Pill, she describes a…
Effective obesity care management begins with lifestyle modification (healthy eating patterns, increased physical activity and health behavior modification) for everyone as this is needed for optimal health. For select patients where lifestyle management is not effective enough to achieve improved health, medications or bariatric surgery can also be considered. As new and more effective medication…
Obesity is a chronic, progressive disease associated with multiple complications and co-morbidities, like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and some forms of cancer. Because the disease of obesity is complex, we use multiple weight management treatments that work well together. Effective obesity care management begins with lifestyle modification (healthy eating patterns, increased physical activity…
Making small changes to what and how you eat can help improve your health. That’s because small diet changes are easier to follow and sustain. Here are some common eating challenges along with examples of the nutritional nudges I often recommend: 1-I Eat Too Many Sweets Sweets can be addictive because the ultra-processing makes you…
