Precision Weight Loss Strategies

By Christopher Sendi, MD

NOVA Addiction Specialists, LLC

. http://www.novaddiction.com/

More Weight Control, Nutrition & Exercise Articles

Precision Weight Loss Strategies

Are you always struggling to lose weight? Do you find yourself always dieting to lose weight yet regain every pound and more several months after that?
It is difficult to fight against an evolutionary design that prevented us from starvation in ages past when food was not so plentiful. Eating less and moving more does not work as a successful weight loss strategy. In fact, exercise contributes only a small percentage towards weight loss. It certainly is a healthful endeavor for cardiovascular support and weight maintenance, but it provides only a small fraction towards weight loss.
Eating less will likewise result in weight loss for several months until your body senses that it is somehow “starving” and begins to turn down its basal metabolic rate to match its losses. Nothing is worse than dieting, exercising, and regaining weight at the same time.
Your body uses hormonal and neurological mechanisms to maintain what it thinks is its correct weight, even if you are overweight. Eating comes as naturally and automatically as breathing. However food is information as well as nourishment.
The quality and type of food you consume is interpreted by your body to determine if you are in a safe and nurturing environment. This is why evidenced-based medicine demonstrates that medical meal replacement works best for weight loss goals. Medical meal replacement, such as the Optifast program, have decades of studies demonstrating effective weight loss. By narrowing food-choice stimuli and providing balanced protein in calculated amounts, weight loss can be achieved without the loss of significant muscle mass, thereby leaving your basal metabolic rate intact.
Metabolic testing throughout a program to follow resting metabolic rate, muscle mass, and fat mass changes is the best way to determine the safest zones for calorie restriction. Poorly devised programs can destroy your metabolism, especially when the food taken in does not have the appropriate balance of amino acids, the building blocks of your muscle. Once this muscle mass is gone, your body will lower its metabolism and this leads to weight regain, otherwise known as yo-yo dieting.
Self-monitoring of weight, mindfulness in eating, and recognition of triggers and cues that lead to food cravings are essential to long term weight loss strategies. Intensive behavioral interventions play an important part in rewiring the brain. All of this must be included in any weight loss program to promote long-term success.