Weight Management
With weight management, my emphasis is a non diet mentality and improving metabolism. If you just want a meal plan please go to MEAL PLANS page. However, just blindly following a meal plan will not work for the long term until you do the "work" of learning to trust and listen to your body. The focus is on changing your relationship with food by appreciating your body right now, not after you lost the weight. Self compassion, self love and a healthy dose of self worth are the ingredients for losing the weight and keeping it off. It will be a fun, exciting, adventurous deep journey into facing and discovering the obstacles that detour us from being the best self we want and know we can be. And, it is not about will power.
We can eat less and move more but if our metabolism is broken, we literally will have to work very very hard to lose. Sometimes, even after working really hard, we still don't lose an ounce. Lifestyle, sleep, stress, types of foods and timing of foods to name a few plays a part in this complex issue.
Most people gain back the weight they lose. Genuine success is when we have a different mindset about food. Food is not a friend or enemy. Food is for nourishment and fuel. Remember, we don't get healthy after we lose weight, we lose weight when we get healthy (mentally and physically).
Useful lab components:
Leptin: It is a hormone released by fat cells that helps control body weight through its effect on the appetite centers in the brain. Increased fat cells produce more leptin. Elevated leptin levels normally tell the body to stop eating, yet overweight people continue to eat, despite having consumed sufficient calories. This paradox is called "leptin resistance". In overweight people, leptin levels are chronically high and after a while the brain starts to ignore or become resistant to its effects. Without the effect of leptin, the appetite controlling factor that tells the body that it is full and not hungry is absent
hs-CRP: High sensitivity C- reactive protein reflects the presence of inflammation in the body. For some time now, hs-CRP levels have been known to be associated with risk for developing cardiovascular disease where levels below 1 mg/L are associated with the lowest risk. Recent studies however have shown that low grade inflammation is also associated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and is part of the insulin resistance syndrome strongly related to features of metabolic syndrome. A healthy lifestyle, right kind of foods for the body, maintaining healthy weight, getting enough physical activity, not smoking, limiting alcohol use, sleeping adequately-- can have a big impact on reducing inflammation.
Sample consultation stages may involve:
1) Review metabolic questionnaire, labs, food diaries and eating habits/ triggers.
2) Determine approximate and appropriate ratio of carbohydrates, proteins, fats for
balanced meals.
3) Work on mindset and relationship with foods