Diet Therapy

Lifestyle modifications such as increasing physical activity and decreasing calorie intake are recommended instead of "dieting." Crash diets should definitely be avoided. The best approach to changing your diet is to talk to your doctor to find out what is best for you. Your doctor can provide you with dietary guidelines or refer you to a dietician for further help. Dietary guidelines will differ for each person depending on height, weight, concurrent health conditions, and desired amount of weight loss. A diet must be established that will allow for weight loss and be easy to comply with. Maintenance of your program is the key to keeping the pounds off.

Exercising is important to any good weight loss program. An aerobic exercise program reduces weight regardless of any changes you make in your diet. Adding 45 minutes of aerobic exercise a day is the equivalent of losing 400-800 Calories depending on your intensity. Minimally, that would result in losing one pound per week. Even if you can only exercise three times per week, that would still help you lose almost 2 pounds per month or 20 pounds over a year! Remember that this is without any changes in your diet. Dropping 500 Calories a day from your diet (the equivalent of one large French fries) will double your results.

Weight training and calisthenics also help you to reduce weight not by direct loss but by decreasing fatty tissue and increasing lean body mass. This will increase your metabolism and burn more calories while at rest.

Obese patients should start slowly with low-intensity walking or swimming and advance intensity as tolerated. If you have cardiovascular disease or other conditions that may make exercise very difficult, talk to your physician before you begin.