Excercising and Prairie Stone

I looked at the nice lady in front of me and sighed. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I just don’t have a pill that is called exercise.”

The patient was a very nice lady of about 70. She had lost about 16 pounds but nothing for the past several months. She was at the Dieters dreaded plateau. She was adamant about not wanting to exercise. She had arthritis of the hip, exercise bored her, she didn’t like the way that she looked in workout clothes, she didn’t have the time and every other excuse in the book she could think of.

The problem is that there is no weight loss program that has any chance of long term success without incorporating exercise. It is possible to lose a few pounds without exercising, but what we lose will be a mixture of fat and protein (from our muscles and our internal organs). If we regain that weight, which almost always happens, it comes back as fat. Exercise combined with weight loss makes our body preferentially dump extra pounds as fat, not as protein. And studies show that the people who manage not to regain weight overtime average an hour of exercise a day.

Most weight loss programs will succeed temporarily but ultimately fail because they are lacking one component or another. Last week I saw two patients that had regained tremendous amounts of weight after having gastric bypass surgery. Neither of these patients had ever changed their lifestyles to incorporate exercise. They wanted the quick fix of surgery because someone else did all the work for them. They still had their couch potato lifestyles and despite the fact that they couldn’t eat like they formerly had because the effects of the surgery would make them throw up if they did, they still managed to regain most of the weight they had lost over time. When I pointed this out to them, and suggested that they should finally begin adopting regular exercise, they turned away, uninterested. Just give me a pill, doc. Another quick fix for my problems. Don’t make me do any work or make any changes.

All of this is an introduction for something that I am excited to announce. Our practice, Chicago Weight Control, is about to expand our comprehensive Medical Weight Loss Program to a new location. We are starting an affiliation with Prairie Stone Health and Fitness Center (hereafter referred to as PS). PS is actually a Hoffman Estates Park District facility, but I’ve never seen a park district facility that looks anything like it. It is a truly state of the art health facility. The fact that it is a park district facility makes it feel less like a money hungry health club and reminds me much more of other partner in comprehensive programming, the Gottlieb Memorial Hospital Health and Fitness Center. Both facilities have a genuine interest in improving the wellbeing and fitness of their members. While they both have facilities that compare nicely to the glitziest commercial health clubs, they are the kind of places where normal, out of shape people who don’t have perfect physiques to begin with won’t feel out of place in.

The program that we have had with Gottlieb has been in place for a few years and has been a great success. We have had over a hundred patients go through it and the average 12 week weight loss is 28 pounds. We have seen people who continue in the program lose over two hundred pounds over time and learn to keep it off.

The Gottlieb program was created as a “dream weight loss program.” Patients see a physician trained in weight loss (myself or Dr. Elhag); they have their metabolism and laboratories checked; they meet with a dietician to craft a diet specific for their needs;
they have monthly group meetings to review behavioral issues in weight loss; and most importantly they meet with a trainer once a week and are required to visit the health club at least three times a week. At the end of the program, most have found the exercise to not only be beneficial but fun, and join the facility.

I am sure that we will be able to duplicate the program at PS and look forward to its initiation.
We have informational meetings scheduled at Gottlieb on Wednesday 2/11/09 and at PS on 02/25/09. Call us at (708) 452 5809 for information about registering for either meeting.