Are You Afraid That Being Overweight Might Kill You?

By Shawn Yazdani, MD, FACC

INOVA Cardiology - Manassas

. http://www.carient.com/

More Weight Control, Nutrition & Exercise Articles

Are You Afraid That Being Overweight Might Kill You?

The facts show that being overweight increases your chance of developing heart disease the number one cause of death in the United States.

Combined together, heart attacks and strokes result in a great majority of deaths in the United States. Deaths caused by the top three lethal cancers combined to not even come close to the number of people dying of heart attack and stroke. While there are many factors putting people at risk for heart disease, bad lifestyle habits top the list.

The general understanding of food groups that cause obesity and heart disease has changed dramatically in the past decade. We as physicians used to advocate a low fat diet to patients with or at risk for heart disease, ignoring foods high in carbohydrates all together. Today we know the number one cause of obesity in the United States is the amount of sugar intake.

There is more and more data that suggests limiting sugar intake results in weight loss and improves patients' cholesterol profile. Physicians now recommend many diets that do this including Adkins, South Beach and Paleo, among others.

A different method that has shown to help many patients is the Ideal Protein medically supervised weight loss system.

The concept is to cut out sugar completely from the diet while the patient loses weight until he or she achieves the pre-specified targeted goal. Carbohydrates are then reintroduced into the diet in limited amounts.

Coaches help patients during this period by going through the food groups and educating them on what they can eat. Patients' diets are also supplemented with products that are sugar free but do help take the sugar craving away.

What is different about Ideal Protein compared to some of the diets mentioned above is that it does not advocate liberal fat intake. While some fat intake is allowed, the diet is supplemented with high protein foods instead.

The results have been amazing

Patients who followed the diet lost weight rapidly some at a rate of 10 pounds a week. Many who were on multiple blood pressure medications came off many or all of their medications. Cholesterol profiles improved. Those with sleep apnea noticed improvement in their disease as their weight decreased.

The ideal protein diet was recently presented at Cleveland Clinic Obesity Summit and was shown to be an effective and safe way to achieve weight loss.