Many people have been conditioned to abhor the word diet. The very term suggests restriction and bland foods like rice cakes. However, diet needn’t be a bad word. And sticking to a healthy eating plan doesn’t need to be boring. Medically supervised diets are anything but boring, and they can quickly make you realize that you’ve had the concept of diets all wrong.
What is a Medically Supervised Diet?
Doctors use medically supervised dietary plans to help combat the obesity problem that has reached pandemic status across the country. Around 74% of the adult population is overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This condition is not just about body size. The issue happens to be a serious one with regards to health.
Being obese places a risk to your health by making you more susceptible to a range of associated ailments like a metabolic disease, cancer, heart disease, and type two diabetes. Overweight and obese individuals often have unhealthy lifestyles and thus greater amounts of body weight as a result.
By sticking to a healthy eating plan, such as a medically supervised diet, you can gain more control over your eating. Doing so is the first step in the fight against obesity for the sake of your health.
Why Is Losing Weight So Hard?
We live in a high-stress society. Most of our food is stuffed with high-fructose corn syrup and sugar. We either sit at desks or rest in our cars while commuting to and from work. We even sit or lie down during our leisure time. On top of it all, people who are obese may have slower metabolisms, making it even more difficult to drop the excess pounds.
You may be able to relate to the average obese person who attempts and fails to lose weight on their own. Medically supervised weight loss programs give you the tools you need to lose weight and keep the weight off for good.
How is a Medically Supervised Diet Different Than a Normal One?
The crash diets most people think of aren’t diets at all, they’re phases we go through. That’s because most people stick to their “diets” for short periods of time. We’ve all heard of those restrictive eating plans like juice fasts or hard-boiled egg diets. The reason those don’t work is that you restrict yourself for two weeks or more, and of course, some weight comes off, but then the weight piles back on once you start eating normally again.
The key is to make eating healthily a habit, and that’s precisely the focus behind a medically supervised dietary plan. Instead of restricting your eating for a week or more, you must pledge to make your changes permanent. Yes, that means for life. It should be easy if you can form eating habits that mesh with your tastes and lifestyle. That’s also what a medically supervised diet is intended to do. It’s a customized approach to living a healthy lifestyle.
What are the Benefits of a Medically Supervised Diet?
In addition to losing a significant amount of weight, a medically supervised plan can improve your quality of life. You may find disorders and diseases easing in severity or disappearing entirely. Some patients find that they no longer need medication for some ailments like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure after their weight comes off. You may experience the same with coronary heart disease, abnormal blood fat levels, cancer, osteoarthritis, and reproductive problems. That’s right. People who can reverse obesity often see their reproductive systems reawaken when before, at their heaviest, they were having trouble conceiving.
How Does a Medically Supervised Diet Work Exactly?
You can obtain guidance with a medically supervised diet by visiting your general practitioner or by scheduling a consultation with a bariatric surgeon. Medically supervised diets are sometimes used before, during, and after bariatric surgery to help patients lose the most amount of weight.
The healthy eating programs are designed for maximum weight loss and are aimed at overweight and obese patients. Once the program begins, you can find yourself being seen by physicians, nurse practitioners, registered dieticians, and psychologists. You may not meet with all of them, but many programs provide this number of specialists to be able to respond to each patient’s individualized needs.
During the consultation with your doctor or bariatric surgeon, the specialist will evaluate you to assess the underlying cause of your extreme weight gain. The assessment also includes a diagnostic test to determine if you are suffering from any weight-related ailments. Your health and weight history will be requested by your doctor, along with your history of attempts to previously lose weight. You may also be required to provide a psychological profile to rule out mental health reasons for your obesity, such as stress eating and bingeing.
The focus of your consultation is to determine the best method for approaching weight loss from a healthy dietary perspective.
Your doctor has many options for approaching your medically supervised diet. The dietary habits recommended will be based on your medical need, body type, personal tastes, and weight loss goals.
Modifying Behavior
One focus of a medically supervised diet is to change the way you eat. In some cases, you may even find yourself changing where you eat. Your doctor may ask you to keep a food diary to record when, how much, how, and where you eat. The doctor wants to know if you tend to eat only at mealtimes, if you snack, and if you often eat while bored.
The doctor wants to know how much you eat to determine if you are consuming more than your daily allotment of calories.
Next, the doctor will want to assess the way you eat. Do you chew slowly, or you do consume meals quickly? Do you eat in front of the television or scroll on your phone while eating? Mindless eating is one of the quickest ways to gain weight or stall weight loss.
Finally, your doctor wants to know where you eat your meals normally. Do you pick up fast food and eat in your car? Do you gorge at work on snacks left for everyone in the break room? Or do you tend to eat with others most of the time? These elements matter and will tell your doctor much about why you may have raised your BMI over time.
Replacing Bad Habits with Healthy Ones
A medically supervised diet can reverse your bad habits to help you develop healthier eating habits for life. You may find yourself eating more at home than out at a restaurant. You might pack lunches to bring to work instead of relying on the cafeteria or vending machines. And you may find yourself being more mindful of what you eat and how you eat, chewing each morsel slowly to savor the flavor before swallowing.
The foods on your medically supervised plan don’t need to be boring. Your doctor can help you choose delicious foods that are also healthy, like lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats. You’ll soon see that eating healthy not only tastes good, but it makes you feel good too.
What Other Tactics Are Used During Supervised Diets?
Your doctor may recommend pre-packaged meal replacement plans to help you lose weight. These are meals that are created for you, so you don’t need to consider what to eat each day. Each portion is carefully weighed out and portioned off, sort of like a TV dinner (but much healthier). The goal is to transition you back to homemade meals through ongoing support and education.
Your doctor may prescribe medications, at least for a short time, to act as a catalyst for your weight loss journey. FDA-approved drugs for treating obesity include phentermine products like Adipex-P or Orlistat.
Medically Supervised Exercise Program
What, how, when, and where you eat are important for weight loss. So is actively moving your body. The more you move, the more calories you will burn, which helps you lose more weight. Just like a medically supervised diet, an exercise program is based on your body type and weight loss goals.
There are just as many options for medically supervised fitness programs as there are for healthier eating. Your doctor can suggest exercises you can perform at home or in the gym, whichever you prefer. Ideally, you will be given a healthy mix of exercises you can engage in so that you can remain healthy while also spicing things up from time to time. You don’t have to get fancy. You can become fit as can be doing simple exercises like swimming, hiking, taking a yoga class, biking, and taking a martial arts class.
The idea is to make it a habit to be active. You’ll be taught to pay more attention to times when you’re sedentary and could be moving around, such as when watching television. After the program, you may find yourself doing a few yoga poses while watching TV in the evening. You may walk to work instead of taking a car or bus. And weekends may be spent rock climbing as opposed to settling in for wings, beer, and the game.
All medically supervised plans have one thing in common – they offer the chance to have real guidance into how to lose weight the healthy way by relying on your doctor’s expertise.
Will Insurance Cover Medically Supervised Weight Loss Programs?
Insurance companies do see the value in significant weight loss and thus will cover some weight loss procedures. Some insurance companies want a recommendation from your doctor along with proof that you have attempted to lose weight in the past. You are more likely to get accepted for an insurance claim if you have one or more weight-related health conditions.
Are You Ready to Give Medically Supervised Weight Loss a Try?
A medically supervised diet and/or exercise program could be your answer to losing a significant amount of excess weight. It’s important that you don’t feel defeated by seeking a doctor’s help. You are not failing at anything by turning to a medically supervised weight loss program. Instead, see it as taking control over your life. See it as drawing a line in the sand and saying, “No more!” to being overweight or obese.
You may find that a medically supervised program isn’t enough to help you lose all the weight you want to lose. In that case, bariatric surgery like the gastric sleeve could be the next best step.
To discuss a medical plan to better eating and exercising, and to discuss bariatric surgery as a potential treatment for obesity, call Healthy Life Bariatrics in Los Angeles today – (310)694-4486.