Science Rules Medical Weight Loss Specialists

Health is Not a Number on a Scale

ayear ago Oct. 1, Medical Weight Loss Specialists opened its doors with Spencer D. Berry, MD, beginning a new health journey. After 25 years in local family practice, he created a new approach to weight loss.

He wanted to spend more time with people. He wanted people to understand what happened in their bodies―what made them overweight. “It takes more than a 15-minute appointment because education takes time,” Berry said.

“Sixty-seven percent of the population is overweight or obese. It is a chronic disease, an epidemic, and it needs to be treated like the disease it is,” he adds. Even though he is board certified in family medicine, he wanted to do more. His on-going study is bariatric medicine, a specialty that treats the disease in addition to teaching people about nutrition, metabolism, behavior and psychology. Berry laments that doctors come out of medical school knowing how to treat malaria but not obesity.

In his family practice, he was frustrated that so much of the disease he saw was related to being overweight or obese. Pills are available to treat many diseases. With weight management, many of those pills can go away.

He believes health comes from people’s choices. His practice supports people in making good choices.

“Our main focus is to make weight-loss healthcare available and affordable. We practice good medical care. We want people to drop excess body weight, get healthier and get back out there living their lives. People move from tentative to transformed,” he said.

“I refuse to believe Americans cannot do this. This is a regular grocery store program. Nothing fancy.”

What happens when you enter?

The silver-haired woman walked in the door two minutes late. She missed the turn for the building. Oops.

Her first part of the experience was an EKG and a body mass index test. Blood pressure, from her little blue pill, was good. A blood panel was taken.

The good news in the body mass index was she has more lean muscle mass than she thought. The rest of the information was what she expected – not healthy.

Then Dr. Berry entered the classroom with four people sitting in comfortable chairs. As a late arrival, she had missed part of a “60 Minutes” video of CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta asking “Is Sugar Toxic?” that she watched later on YouTube.

He visited with the group for something more than an hour. The condensed version of what he said is this:

Health is not a number on a scale. The number on the scale is not a goal. Health is the goal.

Think of your nutritional life as one of your lives. You live a work life, a home life, a spiritual life you make choices all the time. We want you to make better, healthier nutritional choices.

One arm of our journey is healthy weight loss an active time of weight loss. The second is healthy maintenance.

Think long term to age 102. Our program is comprehensive but not complex because we learn to live with something that is chronic, not acute.

About 50 percent of people have some insulin resistance. That comes before pre-diabetes and diabetes― another epidemic. We work with you to bring down the insulin resistance if that is one of your issues.

You cannot gain 20 pounds without gaining 10 first. Remember, it is easier to lose three pounds 10 times than 30 pounds one time. (We later learn this fits with our goal weight and maintenance weight CAP plan. C stands for control, A stands for action and P stands for panic.)

If it’s a carb and it’s white, it isn’t right.

A 30-minute period of exercise keeps the fat fire burning for 36 hours. But, exercise does not make you lose weight. Losing weight gets you moving and doing more exercise.

Journal, journal, journal.

This is a lifelong process―not a project.

After the group session, she had two more sessions, one with Dr. Berry. She left with the medication prescribed based on her blood tests. Now, instead of her head spinning, she takes small steps into a healthier future. It was almost three hours later.

Epilog

Berry, two nurse practitioners, two nurses, a medical assistant and the office staff want people to be healthy. They believe people cannot fail as long as they attack the disease, not themselves.

“We’re looking for home runs,” he said, “not just first base.” [AWM]

Medical Weight Loss Specialists

3175 Sienna Dr. S. Suite 10,Fargo 701.205.3088 www.fargomedicalweightloss.com

By RAChEL FLEISSNER, mD