What is the difference between medical weight loss and ordinary weight loss? What are the five major strategies?

Author: Chen Wei, Chief Physician, Peking Union Medical College Hospital

Reviewer: Xing Xiaoyan, Chief Physician, China-Japan Friendship Hospital

With the promotion of scientific knowledge, more and more obese friends have learned the term "medical weight loss".

What is the difference between medical weight loss and ordinary weight loss? What are the specific methods of medical weight loss? Will there be a rebound? Let's learn about it together.

1. What is the difference between medical weight loss and ordinary weight loss?

There is indeed a big difference between medical weight loss and ordinary weight loss.

Some obese people are not too fat, and they do not have certain chronic diseases caused by obesity. They are considered healthy people who are losing weight. They just need to eat less, skip a few meals, and increase exercise. This is not included in the scope of medical weight loss.

The concept of medical weight loss is that the first type is people who are already threatened by diseases, such as people with diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. These people cannot simply starve themselves during the weight loss process, as this can be dangerous, so these people must be included in medical weight loss.

The second is to prevent diseases caused by severe obesity. For people like them, if they are not actively intervened, they will soon get diabetes and coronary heart disease, and they also need to lose weight medically. For example, some people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy have difficulty breathing because of obesity and enlarged hearts, so they need to be treated as soon as possible, which is also within the scope of medical weight loss.

Others are due to some special circumstances, people who cannot lose weight by eating alone, such as people with tumors, but who are very fat, and we hope to help them lose weight safely.

So medical weight loss brings us, first, safety, second, effectiveness, and third, health. This is completely different from the way we usually lose weight on our own.

Figure 1 Original copyright image, no permission to reprint

2. What are the specific methods of medical weight loss?

As a whole, medical weight loss should have five major strategies at present:

The first strategy is called psychological adjustment, which is actually very important. For an obese person, you must first understand why he wants to lose weight, what his motivation is, what his goal is, and how determined he is to lose weight.

Because we counted the severely obese people, 50% of them have anxiety and depression. One type is anxious because of being fat, and the other type is fat because of anxiety. When they are anxious, they eat. The structure is that the more they eat, the fatter they get. This type of people should first receive psychological counseling to calm them down. So this is the first major strategy, to make them feel better.

The second strategy is the dietary strategy, which requires supporting him in losing weight through a reasonable diet and even necessary medical nutrition.

The third strategy is well known to everyone, which is to balance eating and exercise. Eat less appropriately and eat less scientifically. Exercise scientifically, and this is the third strategy to lose weight.

The fourth strategy is to use necessary medication to lose weight under the guidance of a doctor. Some weight loss drugs can achieve the effect of weight loss by suppressing appetite, which can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

But many people will be more entangled at this time, because they are afraid of the side effects of the medicine, so they take the so-called "weight loss health products" in society. In fact, this kind of "weight loss health products" are either disguised as health products and sell real medicine, or simply deceive consumers in the name of blood sugar lowering magic tea or weight loss magic tea. In fact, it is just sugar water. Drink three bottles of sugar water every day and you will lose weight. But these things have certain health risks, so everyone must pay attention.

The fifth strategy is the ultimate killer, surgical treatment. Currently commonly used surgical procedures include sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass surgery, which can be used as reference. Through surgery, the absorption capacity and absorption area of ​​the stomach can be reduced, thereby achieving the goal of weight loss.

The most widely used method in clinical practice is to return to human nature itself and achieve a better weight loss effect through the two major strategies of scientific diet and reasonable exercise. Most people can achieve their weight loss goals.

Figure 2 Original copyright image, no permission to reprint

3. Will medical weight loss cause weight rebound?

The so-called rebound is actually the uncontrollable return of weight after successful weight loss or after losing weight to a certain extent.

There used to be a very famous weight loss reality show in the United States. It was about weight loss. 19 really fat people were selected to lose weight. Each person lost about 50 to 60 pounds, and the weight loss was very good in three months.

When they came back for a follow-up check six years later, only one person had not gained back the weight, while the rest had all gained it back.

Medical weight loss means losing weight slowly under the guidance of a doctor. The slower you lose weight, the slower you will rebound. And under the guidance of a doctor, you develop a healthy lifestyle that you should follow for a long time, so the probability of rebound will be much smaller.

Therefore, we must emphasize that weight loss is a lifelong process and we must pay attention to our weight throughout our lives, so the rebound rate is relatively low.