The path to achieving your weight and health goals can take several different directions:
- Some of our patients opt to start with our meal replacement program, called Optifast. This entails a period during which all your nutritional needs are covered by the meal replacements, followed by a gradual transition back to normal food and the development of new eating and exercise habits. We are there throughout to facilitate this process, and ensure that it proceeds in a healthy and effective manner.
- Some come with related behavioural issues such as binge eating, mood problems, or addictions, that need working on before they can get serious about weight control.
- Some are good candidates for weight loss surgery, and we help them prepare for this and ensure that the surgery goes well and the post-surgical outcome is optimized.
- Some have issues more related to body image than to weight. We help them re-evaluate their weight goals and to feel better about themselves.
- Finally, some are eager to work on changing their habits in a non-diet way. This psychological obesity treatment approach involves doing the kind of work that focuses on analyzing the influence of situations, personal and family history, emotions, attitudes, strategies, and self-image.
For major weight and lifestyle change to last, it must be internalized, filtering deep down to the level of who you are and how you see yourself. This is true for all patients, no matter which approach they use to start. Thus, the comprehensive approach that we use with our patients encompasses helping them get healthy, feel better about themselves, and achieve deep and lasting change.