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I'm Ready to Lose Weight This Year: Can You Help?
Year after year well-meaning Americans make New Year’s resolutions to transform themselves into healthier, happier people. Not surprisingly, losing weight typically ranks within the top five resolutions. This year is no different.
Remarkably, at any given time more than 160 million Americans are dieting, spending more than $70 billion annually on commercial weight-loss plans, supplements, and other weight-loss programs. Yet come the following year about 80% of people who lose a significant amount of weight end up regaining it.
So what makes weight loss so challenging? More importantly, what can you do to beat the sobering statistics and write your own success story in 2024? Think medical weight loss, says the expert team of medical professionals at Generations Family Practice in Cary, North Carolina.
The challenge of losing weight and keeping it off
Let’s begin unpacking this topic by addressing the inconvenient truth that most diet plans and weight-loss programs fail to mention — losing weight and keeping it off isn’t all about restricting calories and burning more energy. No, it’s not all about a simple math equation.
Chances are if you’ve been through the frustrating merry-go-round of dieting and losing weight only to gain it all back, or worse yet not losing weight at all, you probably already knew that. Think back on the time you and your best friend went on a diet together. She ended up losing weight and you gained 10 pounds, leaving you feeling dejected and wondering how that’s even possible.
It’s definitely possible because of one key fact — trendy cookie-cutter diets assume that every person’s genetic make up and metabolism are the same. Not true. Every person is unique. Not only do people burn calories at different rates, but they can also have medical conditions like diabetes that can make losing weight more difficult than the general population.
Medical weight loss is all about you
Here at Generations Family Practice, we help patients meet their weight-loss goals and keep the weight off through our medical weight-loss program. Medical weight loss is a patient-focused, physician-directed multidisciplinary strategy.
Unlike a diet off the internet or most commercial diet programs, medical weight loss is carefully dialed in and customized for all the factors that make you unique, such as your metabolism, biological and lifestyle factors, or even mental well-being — all the things that often sabotage long-term weight loss.
How a medical weight-loss program plays out
The medical weight-loss process starts out with a weight-loss consultation with our medical team. During the consultation we’ll collect some baseline metrics such as your weight and body mass index, or BMI, which records body fat in the context of height and weight.
We’ll also ask questions not only to get to know you better, but also to learn more about your weight-loss goals, your eating habits, and your activity level. Your weight-loss team uses this information to create a custom weight-loss program. But we don’t stop there.
In order for a weight-loss program to be effective and reap benefits in the long term, we need to discover all the medical conditions that can serve as your unique challenges and barriers to losing weight. We’ll do additional diagnostics like blood tests to uncover blood sugar issues like diabetes as well as thyroid conditions and hormonal imbalances, which not only can make losing weight more difficult, but can also explain continued weight gain.
Support and guidance throughout
Although finally stacking the odds in your favor is a huge plus with a medical weight-loss program, perhaps a close second benefit is that you get your own cheering section, support, and medical guidance all rolled in one. We know how difficult it is to make lifestyle changes. You don’t have to go it alone.
We’ll be there every step of the way to cheer you on when you hit a benchmark, as well as encourage you when you hit a bump in the road. We want 2024 to be the year of you, when you finally get to check off “losing weight” on your New Year’s resolution list.
If you’re ready to start your weight-loss journey and want to learn if medical weight loss is right for you, contact Generations Family Practice for a weight-loss consultation. Call us or book an appointment online today.
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