Make These Modifications to Your Diet if You Want To Lose Weight

Obesity in America is a true and unfortunate epidemic. Over 36% of adults are obese, and alarmingly, nearly one-fifth of younger people and children ages two to 19 are considered obese.

How exactly is obesity defined? Your body mass index, or BMI, is a calculation of your height to body fat ratio. If your BMI is 30 or above, you’re considered to be living with obesity. The condition puts you at risk for serious health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. 

Dr. Gurprit Sekhon and the Nu Wave Medical Center team counsel patients who wish to lose weight safely and permanently. There are so many unsuccessful fad diet programs that are here today and gone tomorrow. Subscribers to those plans often gain the weight they lost back, and more! 

We talk to you about your dieting history, weight loss goals, and what healthy eating and exercise really look like. We’re with you throughout your weight loss journey too, as we know it’s not easy. We also offer other services that, when performed in conjunction with our weight loss program, point you toward optimal health. 

Successful weight loss is about more than what you eat

As we work with you to create a customized weight loss program, we take your metabolism, habits, and goals into account. Real weight loss is about more than meal plans and recipes. It’s about change in every area of your life.

So many other lifestyle habits influence your weight:

• Stress levels
• Physical Activity
• Rest quality
• Age
• Gender
• Family history
• Ethnicity
• Weight distribution

While you can’t control things like your age, gender, and body type, there are still factors you can alter to fuel weight loss. You can prime yourself for weight loss by making these tweaks:

1. Swapping out a sedentary lifestyle for an active one

It’s simple math. If you expend more energy and take in fewer calories, you shed pounds. Dr. Sekhon advises engaging in aerobic exercise for half an hour to an hour per day, five days a week, and committing to strength training on the other two.

2. Rest matters

Poor quality rest, whether it’s middle-of-the-night insomnia or simply not getting enough hours of sleep overall, can wreak havoc with your metabolism.

3. Food and emotions are linked

There's not a person on the planet who hasn’t drowned their worries in a milkshake or de-stressed with french fries. The key is to find healthier substitutes, like walking with a friend or watching a funny film. Leaning on these activities prevents the pounds from accumulating.

4. Weight is impacted by both ethnicity and socioeconomics. 

Be aware that in the United States, African Americans and LatinX individuals are more likely to live with obesity. The causes are complex but include a higher likelihood of living in poverty and being food insecure. 

Poorer Americans are also at more risk of living in “food deserts,” or areas where grocery stores are scarce. This means that affected people can’t easily get fresh produce and must rely more on processed foods. 

Still, what you put in your body is critical to losing weight

Even though lifestyle practices and the many factors we mentioned above contribute to obesity, your daily diet matters a lot too. We work with you to reacquaint yourself with healthy food. Making the switch from a fat, salt, and artificial ingredient-laden diet to one whose mainstays are healthier is doable. 

Some of the best overhauls to your diet you can institute for weight loss include:

• Eating high-fiber foods like fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and beans makes you feel fuller, so you have less of a desire to eat more.
• Concentrating on foods that are straight from nature, rather than highly processed options, gives you more nutritional bang for your buck. For canned or boxed food products, look for short ingredient lists. 
• Fats aren’t created equal. Cholesterol-heavy rich cheeses and red meat aren’t as healthy as foods that contain higher quality fat, like nuts and avocados, which keep you satisfied longer.
• Swap out low-quality carbs like white bread and pasta for nutritional powerhouses like oats, quinoa, and millet.
• Watch your liquids; drinking water keeps you feeling full, but juices and soft drinks are filled with unwanted sugar, artificial coloring, and other undesirable ingredients.
• Don’t skip breakfast. There are plenty of healthy options, from smoothies to scrambles, that fuel you well until lunch. Don’t feel like eating at 7 am? That’s OK, just have something at some point in the morning!

Dr. Sekhon may also prescribe products to complement your weight loss if you’re doing everything right, but the scale refuses to budge. Medically supervised weight loss sees us tailor your plan to you!

Prepare to look and feel much better, knowing your weight loss is for real!

Call us to initiate healthy and lasting weight loss, or book an appointment with us online.