Weight Loss Management

By Yetunde Sannoh, MD

Nothing helps you meet your weight loss goals better than the type of ongoing support and encouragement you can get from weight loss management.

What Are Health Risks Caused By Being Overweight?

Carrying extra weight has a significant effect on your bones, muscles, and joints. In fact, obese women are four times more likely to develop osteoarthritis than non-obese women, while obese men have five times the risk.

Being overweight also has an impact on your overall health, because fat cells release hormones and other biochemicals that regulate metabolism and affect systems throughout your body. Extra body fat increases your risk of

Diabetes

High cholesterol

High blood pressure

Heart disease

Obstructive sleep apnea

Endometrial, breast, prostate, and colon cancers

Why Is It Hard To Lose Weight?

It’s not easy to cut calories and follow an exercise routine, but that’s not the only reason why it’s hard to lose weight. Your body can sabotage weight loss when it’s out of balance. Here are two examples

Leptin

Fat cells produce the hormone leptin, which normally lowers your appetite. Weight gain often causes leptin resistance, so your brain doesn’t respond properly to leptin. As a result, you continue to feel hungry.

Ghrelin Increase

Ghrelin is a hormone that makes you feel hungry. After you lose weight, ghrelin levels may increase by nearly 23%, making you feel constantly hungry.

How Does Weight Loss Management Support Your Goals?

Weight loss management makes it easier to achieve weight loss success. Your doctor should begin by evaluating your overall health and testing for underlying health problems that may affect your weight, such as hormone imbalances and nutritional deficiencies.

Weight Management Services Include

Weight loss counseling and monitoring Weight loss counseling is highly personalized to support your needs. You’ll learn about lifestyle habits and issues like stress that affect your weight. You can get help setting realistic goals and create strategies for maintaining your weight loss.

Weight loss monitoring offers the encouragement and feedback you need to stay motivated. As your doctor tracks your progress, timely adjustments can be made to your weight loss plan, if needed.

Diet and nutrition Your doctor should help you plan a healthy diet and provides nutrition counseling to be sure you have the nutrients you need to support your health and metabolism.

Exercise plan Exercise helps you lose weight, boosts your mood, and keeps you healthy. Your doctor should work with you to create an exercise plan that fits your lifestyle.

Body contouring When you’re close to your healthy weight, but still have problem areas of fat, you can consider body contouring that uses laser-assisted lipolysis treatment to remove fat permanently.