Just eat less and exercise more!!
Tired of hearing that? We are, too. If you have trouble losing weight and keeping it off, then you’re in the right place. You know it’s more complicated than that simple statement. You succeed at many other things, but this just isn’t working. Maybe you’ve lost 10 or 20 pounds. Then the system seems to put on the brakes. You keep doing the same behaviors that helped you lose that weight, but now the scale doesn’t budge. And you seem to be thinking about food even more than usual. The starchy or sweet foods are calling out to you or constantly whispering in your ear.
This is not a lack of will power. The body of scientific evidence grows weekly. Here’s the truth:
Primitive parts of your brain can tell when there’s not enough food coming in. The brain says, “Hey, if we can’t find more food, we’re going to die!” So, changes in brain chemistry and hormones cause several things:
-
Increased interest in food.
-
The stomach requires more food to feel full.
-
Resets your body’s metabolism to burn fewer calories at rest.
-
The lowered metabolism makes you tired, and possibly depressed, so you become less active.
-
Makes your muscles become more efficient, so when you do work out, you burn fewer calories for the same amount of work.
-
These changes have been studied as far out as one year after weight loss; some of them six years. And guess what? These changes still haven’t returned to normal.
So now you know what you’re up against. It’s not weakness – it’s your primitive body doing what it’s supposed to do to keep you alive when there’s not enough food coming into your stomach. It’s going to take superhuman will power to continue to lose weight and to keep it off. That’s why this is such a challenge. And don’t go around comparing yourself to others who are successful. No two bodies are alike. Genes and personal history differ.
Getting help for these problems involves using medications that decrease appetite and interest in food. For some people, getting the metabolism back to normal is also part of the process.
A BROADER VIEW OF THYROID
LOCATION
Based in Rhode Island
Telehealth Provided to California
SERVICES
Weight loss
Improve/reverse Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes
Weight regain after bariatric surgery
Thyroid disorders
Medication management
Eating disorders
Counseling
While most people accept the idea that we should treat type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol problems with medications, some people continue to think that we should not use medications to help with weight loss and maintenance. Weight loss often improves problems such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, prediabetes, pain on weight-bearing arthritic joints, sleep apnea, and some liver diseases. Weight loss also can decrease the risk of developing many types of cancers. So if we use medications to help with all of those, shouldn’t we use medications to help treat one of the causes of many of these diseases?
A variety of prescription medications can be used alone or in combinations to help you lose weight and keep it off. Some of these medications are approved by the FDA for weight loss, others are approved for other problems but have decreased appetite as a side effect. Using two or more medications sounds scary to some people. By using two medications that work in different ways, we get more than additive effects. And we can use lower doses of each, decreasing the likelihood of side effects. If you want medications, we’ll present the pros and cons of each, and you decide which you want to take.
We’ll work with you, recognizing that your lifestyle and life challenges mean that some changes are hard for you. We can help you strategize to decide what changes are reasonable for you to implement and give you ideas to help.
New Patient Visit: $220, 1-hour appointment
A deposit of $100 is required to hold the appointment time. The deposit will be applied to your first visit.
Follow-up Visit: $110, 30-min appointment.
Follow-up visits for weight management are every 6-8 weeks.
Once you reach your goal, maintenance visits are approximately 3-4 months.
For thyroid-only patients, follow-up visits vary from 3- 6 months.
Restart Visit: $185: 45-60-min appointment.
If your health insurance is a PPO, we will provide a receipt/superbill so that you can submit a claim to your insurance company. It’s easy to do. In many cases, they will provide some level of reimbursement directly to you. You may want a superbill for tax purposes or a health savings account.
If you live in Rhode Island, your first visit is in person and others can be either telehealth or in person. If you live elsewhere, I’ll need to see you in person in my office for ALL visits. State laws require this as I am licensed in RI only.