How to Control Weight

control weight

People with high self-control tend to eat fewer calories and gain less weight over time. Choose a healthy diet that includes 10 portions of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Also, limit sugary foods.

Controlling your weight can improve your health and prevent obesity-related chronic medical conditions. Some underlying health conditions can also cause weight gain, so it’s important to get checked for these issues.

Weight management programmes

Weight management programmes are designed to help people change their eating behaviours and increase physical activity. They are usually 12 weeks long and include weekly or fortnightly sessions and regular weigh-ins. They can be delivered in community settings, workplaces, primary care, and online. People can self-refer to these programmes or be referred by their GP or local pharmacist.

Behavioral therapy for weight control focuses on identifying and eliminating unhealthy behaviors and substituting them with healthy ones. It includes reducing hunger, improving nutrition, limiting food intake, and learning to manage eating disorders. It also helps participants identify feelings and beliefs that contribute to obesity.

In addition to individual counselling, family-based behaviour change programmes can also help control weight. These programs focus on achieving positive behavior change and helping families make healthier lifestyle choices. MEND 6-13/Healthy Together and Healthy Weight Clinic are examples of these programmes. They are conducted in participating YMCA locations and offer 60- to 120-minute sessions twice a week for 10 weeks.

Dietetics

Dietetics is a science that involves studying the relationship between food and nutrition. It is a profession that can be very rewarding and is a great career choice if you are passionate about promoting health and well-being through good dietary choices. Pre-registration dietetics programmes offer courses in the biological sciences (chemistry, physics and biology) as well as nutrition, foods and food preparation.

In the UK, most ‘dietetic products’ are regulated by legislation (formerly known as PARNUTs). This covers those containing special carbohydrates, vitamins or minerals and foods for medical purposes. The latter includes infant formulae and malted bedtime drinks such as Horlicks which are often fortified with calcium and a range of other vitamins.

A dietitian is a qualified practitioner who meets a set of specific academic and professional requirements. These include completing a degree with modules in the biological sciences and nutrition and undertaking one or more supervised practice periods. They are referred to as registered dietitians in the US and UK.

Nutritional assessment

A nutritional assessment is a practice performed by nutritionists to look at an individual’s overall dietary health. This helps to identify and treat malnourishment, which can cause many adverse health outcomes. The benefits of nutritional assessments include improved healthcare outcomes and reduced cost of care.

To perform a nutritional assessment, you need to gather a wide range of data from the patient. This includes anthropometric measurements (weight and height to calculate body mass index), a clinical evaluation, and a dietary assessment. During the nutritional assessment, you will need to ask questions about food and fluid intake, and whether the patient is using parenteral or enteral feeding devices.

A comprehensive nutritional assessment is essential to prevent and diagnose malnutrition in older adults. It can also help break the vicious cycle of malnutrition, which aggravates diseases or conditions and leads to further nutritional deficiency. A systematic team-based approach to nutritional evaluation can improve healthcare outcomes and reduce costs.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy can help with many aspects of controlling weight, including motivation to change, addressing negative or self-defeating thoughts and attitudes, establishing an emotional support network and improving communication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can teach coping strategies and techniques such as stimulus control (removing unhealthy foods from the home), goal-setting and self-monitoring, and restructuring unhelpful eating patterns and behaviours. Individual psychodynamic (insight-oriented) therapy can explore conflicts around food and disordered eating patterns, body image, and the prejudice and overt discrimination that obese patients may experience.

However, encouraging clients to lose weight can conflict with a therapists ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence and associated enforceable standards for psychologists. Therefore, it is best to focus on psychotherapy for mental health issues and use a HAES approach when working with weight-concerned clients.