You, Only Better

by CARA MCDONALD

The result is a practice where patients can receive weight loss, skin and body care services that help them lean into their health and wellbeing in a way that helps them feel inspired and at home in their bodies—and most important, done in a sound, medically informed way.

The clinic now offers medically supported weight loss that starts with a habit and diet reboot. “What you put into your body makes such a difference—it will impact your skin, your joint pain,” Hoffman explains. “So we start people out on a super clean diet for a very short period of time, but people can’t believe how good they feel.”

That super clean diet? It starts with three weeks of real, whole food. “It’s very spelled out,” says Hoffman. “We’ve found it helps people a lot to know exactly what to do for success.”

The other secret to success is the accountability the weekly appointments and check-ins provide. “When you have accountability, when you’re investing in something, you’re less inclined to cheat,” she adds.

In addition, the team offers skin care that’s tightly curated—instead of a laundry list of treatments, they’ve narrowed it down to the most impactful and least-invasive options that don’t change how you look (so no lifts and fillers), but improve and enhance.

Similar to the weight loss model, her team helps patients come up with a highly individualized plan, which can range from simply switching to new products, to facials, chemical peels, Botox and microneedling and microdermabrasion. (Her personal fave? Virtue Microneedling. “I can tell it’s made a difference in a very short period of time without making me look like a different person.”)

The result is a care model where people who have experienced frustration or hesitancy to tackle personal improvements can feel supported and guided in the best way possible. “We don’t go with the, ‘What don’t you like about yourself?’” Hoffman says. “We help you choose what’s going to make you feel good about yourself.”

Before Jessica Perez became a NAMI navigator, she urgently needed one.

Her daughter Ava—normally an active, outgoing 12-year-old with a busy school, sports and social calendar—had become increasingly withdrawn during the pandemic.

No longer able to attend school in person, play on the three sports teams she loved or build and brainstorm alongside her robotics team, Ava went from feeling hopeful for a return to normal life to feeling hopeless. She became anxious. What initially seemed like sadness about the situation began showing itself through worsening signs of anxiety and depression.

“In our family, we treat mental health issues as we do a broken bone or other serious medical condition, so we took her to the emergency room at Munson [Medical Center in Traverse City],” Perez explains.