Diets, Exercise and Beyond

By Alan S. Weiss, MD

Annapolis Integrative Medicine

. http://www.annapolisintegrativemedicine.com/

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Diets, Exercise and Beyond

Body weight and obesity are intricately related to accepted views of beauty, and varies between cultures and eras. However medical evidence has linked obesity to health and life expectancy. Being overweight contributes to the development of heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and cancer.

What is overlooked is why being overweight contributes to disease. The common link is a vicious circle Being overweight and especially belly fat creates insulin resistance and inflammation, which contribute to the development of heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and cancer. Secondly, unhealthy states such as toxicity and inflammatory states, as well as chronic stress and sleeplessness, increase the likelihood of becoming overweight.

For each person there is a safe way to lose weight and to keep it off.

In order to do so certain issues must be addressed

1. Underlying medical issues such as sleep apnea, hypothyroidism, anemia, and other nutritional deficiencies can make it difficult to lose weight.

2. Exercise Muscle burns calories much more than fat. Every pound of muscle uses around 50 extra calories a day. If you have lots of fat and little muscle mass it may take very few calories to maintain your body weight. This is why some people hardly eat, but can't lose weight. Intense bursts of exercise and resistance exercise is most efficient for weight loss.

3. It is where calories come from that influence a person's ability to lose weight. Paying attention to the glycemic index of foods (roughly, how easily the food raises blood sugar) will help with weight loss.

4. Medications can produce weight gain and fatigue and must be addressed.

5. It is critical to examine how we eat to make ourselves happy, to get relief, to reward and to distract ourselves etc.

There are a number of modalities to assist patients in losing weight, including detoxification, addressing insulin resistance, and reducing inflammation.

A very effective yet controversial approach is using very small injections of a hormone called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) with a low calorie diet to produce rapid and lasting significant weight loss. I personally lost 22 pounds in four weeks (and have kept it off) and have seen similar weight loss consistently with my patients. While not for everyone this is a safe and effective method. There are scientific studies both supporting and questioning this method. However my experience is that this works, especially with people who have been struggling with weight for a long time.