I wonder if “Lose Weight” is the most common New Year’s Resolution of them all. We start the year with every intention in the world of finally committing to “eating right.” Then when we find that it’s not working, we beat ourselves up for not being fully committed, and being too weak to stick with it. But what if the problem isn’t with your willpower, but with your notion of what it means to “eat right?”
Unfortunately, you would be in good company. The low-fat high-carb public-health exhortations whose drumbeat got pretty loud starting in the 1970’s, launched an epidemic of rising obesity, cardiovascular disease, and Type 2 Diabetes (what used to be called “adult-onset Diabetes,” but now occurs disturbingly often in children as well). In fact, obesity/overweight is now the single largest risk factor for death from preventable disease in America.
What if I told you that most people who need to lose weight could do so by changing the way they eat, without going hungry? What if I told you that it’s not about starving yourself, but about:
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quality of food intake, and
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learning how to eat and live so that your body’s hormones are sending messages to burn fat, rather than store fat (which turns out to not be about how much fat you eat)?
Well, in fact, I’m telling you that. I’m not saying it would be a piece of cake (pun intended). I am saying that it’s doable. You would have to be a) committed, b) willing to let go of habits in your life that aren’t serving you, and c) willing to adopt habits that promote normal weight, health, and lifelong wellness. And let’s be honest, I am also hinting that if you are one of those people who refuse to cook, you might have to become willing to cook. Cooking doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to involve some method of getting vegetables (cooked or raw) into your body, and some simple methods of getting good protein sources into an edible format. If you are overweight, and you are serious about losing weight and cutting your risk of premature death or disability, you need to make food preparation a priority. Good health doesn’t come from a box of processed food, no matter how low-calorie they say it is. And, if you are overweight, and you are serious about losing weight, you need to get competent guidance in how you can make it happen.
Here are 2 ways to get started:
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For normal-weight people who want an introduction to incorporating quality nutrition into their health regimens, attend my monthly “Eating 101” nutrition talk. Click here to find out when/where.
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For overweight people, for starters I highly recommend that you also attend the “Eating 101” talk mentioned above for a jump-start to my orientation toward healthy nutrition. However, this is only the beginning. Book an appointment with me today, to begin your series of individualized weight-loss visits.
May the Light of the Returning Sun inspire you toward luminous health in the New Year,
Dr. Deborah Epstein