We all live in a weight-positive world – a world that throws unhealthy food in front of us all day long, encourages us to be sedentary, disrupts our sleep, and intentionally tries to hijack our emotions. All of these things promote weight gain. Not surprisingly, to counteract these forces, it takes quite a bit of work. Changing our daily routines to live differently is key – the things that got us here aren’t the same things that will dig us out of this hole. However, this process takes time and energy and lots of self-reflection…
Consistency vs Intensity
This is the time of year when most of us get fired up about self-improvement. Whether we call them New Year’s resolutions or not, most of us look at January as a time to reset – to do or be better than we did the year before. We vow to eat better, to exercise more, […]
Community Support
Almost everyone who walks through our doors is there because they want to find a way to be healthier and live better. Despite the almost universal desire for these things, the actual “doing it” isn’t easy. It takes grit and persistence and tenacity and bravery and vulnerability – and a whole lot of other things. […]
The Junk Drawer of Weight Loss
I am a pretty neat, organized human being. Everything has its place and I sleep better knowing that most things are in their place when I go to bed at night. I like the dishes all put away in the dishwasher and the shoes put in the mudroom cubbies. However, I am not perfect in [...]
Leaders
In the past year, the number of people requesting new patient appointments has exploded. We have been slowly and steadily growing to accommodate all of these new patients. We are actually moving to a new office next month so that we can make it all work. This is a great problem to have – and […]
What do Rocks Have to do With Health?
I love this analogy. Stephen Covey was a business author who popularized the ‘big rocks’ approach to productivity. In summary, your total available time for the next week is represented by a jar. You can fill the jar with any combination of big rocks, pebbles and sand. You have limited space in the jar, so […]
Identity Change
I started diving into the field of behavioral change last year and found it fascinating – and so applicable to the field of Obesity Medicine. Consequently, we spent the whole month of March in my office focusing on this concept and how to apply it to achieve successful, long-lasting weight loss. I’m not going to […]
Ulysses Contracts
During active weight loss, patients come into the office for a lot of things: doctoring, evaluation, support, community – but one of the things they crave most at first is accountability. Coming into the office to meet with us on a regular basis provides them with accountability. Some of our patients keep coming month after […]
Reward Eating
Many of my patients struggle with the desire to eat in the evenings – typically a few hours after dinner, usually while watching T.V. There seem to be two very distinct reasons that people do this. For many people, this is a version of what we call “reward eating.” In other words, it’s eating because […]
The Marshmallow Experiment
Information about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment has come across my desk several times in the past few weeks. That’s a sign that I need to bring it to you! For those of you that aren’t familiar, the marshmallow experiment was performed on a group of preschoolers in 1972 and was performed by a group studying […]
Our Toxic Food Culture
Only 12% of American adults are considered metabolically healthy. 12%. That means that 88% of us have some sort of disease or condition that impacts our metabolic health. Diseases like overweight or obesity, prediabetes and diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver, etc. These diseases are called lifestyle diseases. They are directly related to […]