About the Program

Strategy, Support, Success, Weight Loss

Success Story: Gabriel Mendes

How Does It Work?

It takes a team approach.
Sustained, healthful weight loss requires a combination of medical and social support to help you alter your nutrition, lifestyle and physical exercise. To address each of those factors, our staff includes physicians, psychologists, social workers, dietitians and exercise physiologists. This multi-disciplinary team plans and administers a weight management program customized to your health needs.

It involves medical assessment and treatment coordination.
It is important to assess for the many possible causes of obesity. Medical causes, including certain illnesses and the effects of certain medications, may be important contributors to your weight problem. Our physicians will provide and coordinate a thorough medical evaluation, medication management, exercise evaluation and oversee all aspects of your weight management program here.

It involves helping you change your behavior.
When you enter our program, you participate in 16 to 28 weekly group sessions that teach behavior strategies for helping you lose weight. What are the triggers that lead to overeating and how do you manage them? How can you handle restaurants, social gatherings and holidays? How can you manage stress in ways other than eating? How do you prevent relapses? These are some of the day-to-day situations and behavior patterns we help you master.

It involves re-thinking how and what you eat.
The plain truth of the matter is: you cannot successfully lose weight, and maintain a desired weight, without first learning and complying with the basics of good nutrition. For that reason, proper nutrition is a cornerstone of our weight management program. While we offer three levels of calorie restriction to achieve the desired initial weight loss, our ultimate goal is to help you learn how to eat properly and build a lifestyle that will help you sustain your weight loss.

It means building physical activity into your day.
Regular physical activity - exercise - does not have to be a feared or dreaded task. The key is to set attainable goals. To do that, we first give you a medically supervised stress test so that we'll know what level of activity is safe for you. With that information and your input, our staff physical trainers design a program you can maintain even if you have physical limitations. We have an exercise facility on site.

It means providing emotional support.
Whether your weight problem is aggravated by emotional issues, unhealthy behavior patterns, or a combination of both, our experience is that the weekly groups can help you identify the factors you need to address; self-esteem issues. boredom, or difficulty resolving conflict.

It means helping you maintain your desired weight.
As is true for the more than 3,500 individuals who have entered our program, successful weight management is a lifelong endeavor. It requires hard work and commitment. It requires disciplines. It means finding the strength to overcome set-backs that will occur along the way.

Toward that end, we offer a follow-up weight management program to help you with your maintenance efforts. In our medically supervised "Masters Program", our clinical psychologists, dietitian and exercise physiologist conduct weekly maintenance groups that focus on relapse prevention, nutrition and exercise.

To register for our next free orientation call, 401-444-4800.