Weight Management

THE TRUTH ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN

The surest way to permanently solve a weight problem is to understand how it got started in the first place. You need to find out why the food you’ve been eating and enjoying your entire life, made you put on weight. Scientists at the National Institute of Health who investigated why this problem became an epidemic, found that it started with the tremendous increase in food production that began last century. Statistics show that since that happened, overweight and obesity rates have more than doubled. When food companies began marketing huge quantities of inexpensive, good tasting food, it opened the floodgates that led to our problem with weight. Why did this happen? Because food not only provides us with the nutrients we need to live… food also gives us pleasure. Soon food producers realized this pleasing association could increase their profits. All it took was adding globs of fat, sugar, and salt to every edible they sell.

As a result, today there is always something tempting in supersized portions available practically everywhere. So, it’s inescapable that most people with a normal appetite are eventually going to slip into a habit of overeating. This outcome is nearly impossible to escape, and it is why millions of Americans ended up having trouble with our weight.

Because most foods are super palatable, and addictive, eventually they override our inborn wiring to stop when we’re full and have had enough. It’s clear this inability to respond normally when our stomach is already full, results from our doctored-up, weight generating food supply. Rather than being born wired to be overweight, we wind up overweight courtesy of our deliciously manufactured diet, which has led us to succumb to the habit of eating regardless of whether or not we’re hungry. This is why and how your weight problem got started.

THE TRUTH ABOUT PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS

At Lifeways we approach permanent weight loss by using a method European researchers developed specifically to keep off every pound you lose. As a result, compared to other programs, a higher percentage of patients who’ve used the Lifeways method, so far maintained their weight loss for more than 5 years.

To deal with what originally caused the problem, we focus on getting you back in touch with your inborn “I Feel Full” response. As with a flaccid muscle that hasn’t been used for way too long but is still capable of being brought back to function like it’s supposed to, we work to restore your natural satiety response.

We start by having you practice focusing on the feelings in your stomach, instead of on the taste in your mouth. Then by repeatedly focusing on your stomach’s first noticeable signs of fullness, you’ll begin to identify the normal feelings of satiety. In no time you’ll recognize this feeling as a satisfying sense of being full enough to stop completely. Along with your individualized diet, getting your innate “stop signal” back in sync with how much is eaten, is what will permanently reverse the direction your weight was headed. (We use three tools to assist the process of restoring normal functioning: a pedometer, a timer, and a small digital scale.)

In addition to the food itself, demanding schedules, obligations, unavoidable circumstances, or other hassles may lead you to lose control of what’s going on with your body. These can have an overbearing effect on eating behavior. At Lifeways, we don’t ignore these problematical issues. Our team of professionals all possess the scientific, as well as the personal disposition required to respond constructively. When advisable, we search for ways to keep any negative influences from disrupting your progress. We’re here to clear a path that once you get on it, you’ll find it easy to stay on it permanently.

AVOIDING OBESITY IF YOU’VE BECOME VERY OVERWEIGHT   

As people continue to gain weight, what happens is their fat cells get larger. The cells puff up like little balloons to accommodate more fat. However, there is a limit to how large fat cells can expand. When the limit in size is reached, the cells can’t get bigger; so, to accommodate any added fat, the body must produce additional cells. This increases the total number of fat cells. Scientist estimate that the production of added fat cells begins when a person is 50 to 60 percent overweight. Approaching this level means a person is about to cross the line from overweight -into-obesity.

That’s a red flag because while dieting can reduce the size of fat cells, dieting can’t reduce their number. Once the body starts to produce more fat cells, those cells become permanent. Then you’re stuck with that number for life. That’s why once an individual becomes very obese, other than surgery, it’s difficult to attain substantial weight loss. Average weight people have 25 to 35 billion fat cells, whereas those who become obese can reach 100 to 150 billion. This means that prior to reaching a 50 to 60 percent overweight level, before the multiplication of fat cells has kicked in, it’s still possible to lose substantial weight. At that point, avoiding a nearly irreversible state of obesity is still possible.

Description of the Lifeways Program for high scale weight loss

We aim to get you back in touch with your early signal for hunger and your signal for moderate fullness.  Once these signals are working properly again, the result will be that your body will be able to burn up the excess fat it is storing.

Many people eat too fast or too slow or we wait too long in between meals which keeps these signals malfunctioning.  Then we only register when we are starving or feel stuffed.  Our bodies are no longer sending us the early signal for hunger nor the signal for moderate fullness. This ends in excessive weight gain.

By designing a menu that includes eating frequently throughout the day, and not waiting too long between meals along with the proper eating rate (not too fast or too slow) it results in normal regulation of the signals and then to  continuous burning up of large amounts of excess fat.

PRE AND POST BARIATRIC COACHING

Individuals with a Body Mass Index over 35 are at risk of several serious health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep apnea, and cancer. Weight loss surgery is one way to prevent those risks. But because it’s a complex procedure, it carries risks and side effects of its own. To achieve weight loss, surgery alters the stomach and digestive system to limit the amount of food that can be eaten. But this also limits the nutrients that will be absorbed. To support a successful outcome, both the preparation for the procedure and the subsequent management of the appropriate diet, a highly trained Medical Nutritionists is necessary.  At Lifeways we have five of the best.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHILDHOOD OBESITY

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHILDHOOD OBESITY

The last national survey (2018) found the number of obese children and adolescents has tripled since the 1970’s. What’s ultimately responsible also lies in the food environment our families exist in. Why? In some countries advertising candy, sugary cereals, or fast-food restaurants is illegal. Not here! Our government budgets a minimal amount of dollars yearly to get  kids to eat healthy fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, to sell their goodies, the food industry and fast-food chains spend about four billion yearly advertising to children. That’s one thousand times more than what’s spent on promoting healthy eating and it is why the childhood obesity statistics keep going up.

Parenting practices at home are the only antidote. At Lifeways we’ve found that to level the playing field, it takes informed planning, complete family involvement and a little cunning. It’s possible to make moderation workable by first gaining the child’s voluntary involvement. That’s why our approach to managing children’s weight in a healthy way involves inviting the child to help plan ways to deal with the issues that produce the problem. We give the child examples of some options in our dining area. Lifeways approach uses moderation that stays within the limits of predictable growth rates (instead of calorie restrictions,) and plain common sense.