Why is it so hard to lose weight?

Is quickly losing significant amounts of weight unhealthy?

Why is it so hard to maintain weight loss?

How is the OPTIFAST® Formula different from other weight loss formulas?

Will strict dieting ruin my metabolism?

Most overweight people are insulin resistant. Insulin resistance may make a person feel constantly hungry. This constant hunger makes it difficult to stay on a low fat, high carbohydrate weight reduction diet. It also promotes fat storage and prevents the breakdown of fat in the body. Insulin resistance requires a dietary intervention to allow the body to burn fat effectively.

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Although it is a common belief that losing a lot of weight quickly is unhealthy, research has shown that it is not. As long as you continue to consume the recommend nutrients and are carefully monitored, rapid weight loss can bring immediate rewards in lower blood pressure, lower blood fat and blood sugar levels. It can bring immediate relief from many obesity-related health conditions and dramatically improve your quality of life.

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It is extraordinarily difficult to change lifestyle habits you have spent a lifetime creating. That is why many people who have lost weight eventually regain that weight. They simply slip back into the eating and activity patterns that caused them to gain weight initially. Research has shown that it takes two years to change eating habits; and that you will have to maintain those changes for a lifetime to successfully manage your weight.

When you gain weight, your body produces new fat cells. The cells do not go away when you lose weight-they just decrease in size. Those cells simply refill when you overeat. That makes it very easy to regain weight once you've been overweight or obese once. Shrinking those cells down through weight loss is a challenge, but maintaining your new weight requires you to maintain your new lifestyle skills in the long term.

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OPTIFAST is labeled as a medical food. Although it may be consumed as part of a traditional food diet, it is designed to provide complete meal replacements. This is not the case with over-the-counter liquid formulas. In addition, OPTIFAST has been very carefully engineered to prevent sugar highs and lows when it is consumed under the supervision of a physician. This is particularly important for people who are diabetic or who have insulin resistance. We encourage you to compare the nutritional composition of OPTIFAST to any other meal replacement product. There is a substantial difference. This information is readily available at our clinic.

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Research demonstrates that dieting does decrease resting metabolic rate (RMR). The stricter the diet, the more it tends to depress RMR. This is the body's natural response to a food shortage. Studies show that RMR increases as calorie intake increases. At six months after OPTIFAST Program participation, there was no difference in the RMR of people who lost weight using the low calorie OPTIFAST diets and those who lost weight using a 1200 calorie/day reduced-calorie diet of conventional foods.

People who lose a significant amount of weight will have a slightly lower RMR than they did before dieting because they will lose some lean body tissue. It is important to recognize that as people gain weight, they gain lean body tissue to help carry the extra pounds. When they lose fat, they lose some of the associated lean tissue. To help ease the transition to regular foods, the OPTIFAST Program includes a gradual return to higher calorie levels, which helps give the dieter's metabolism time to increase. Regular exercise can also help maintain and increase your RMR and should be a part of your new lifestyle for a variety of additional reasons as well.

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