When trying to lose weight, it is important to look at the entire picture and not focus on one thing only.
For example, to optimize weight one must optimize thyroid and female hormones and not just watch diet and exercise. This is because the thyroid controls metabolism and if the metabolism is slow, it is very difficult to get rid of fat. There can often be subtle imbalances in the thyroid and a detailed test that includes not just the TSH but also T4 and T3 is helpful in making sure thyroid levels are optimal
Even female hormones are important as an excess of estrogen relative to progesterone tends to cause fat cells to divide. Women also make small amounts of testosterone but stop doing so after the age of 50 and this can cause weight gain too. Checking testosterone levels for women is also important when trying to help women losing weight.
Another factor that is often neglected is mental attitude and stress. Stress causes cortisol levels to go up which causes weight gain especially in the belly area. In addition, people often eat more when they are stressed. If the mental attitude is good and stress is under control it is a lot easier to lose weight.
Sleep is an important factor when trying to optimize health. People who snore or have sleep apnea often are too tired to exercise during the day. Lack of sleep also increases stress hormone levels that make it difficult to lose weight.
When trying to help someone lose weight in my clinic, my staff and I work hard to optimize all of these factors. While doing so another treatment that can help get rid of stubborn fat is coolsculpting.
While it has been around for many years, we are finding that we can get better results by optimizing all the factors that make it difficult to lose weight. Coolsculpting keeps working for several months so we can work on optimizing health and start coolsculpting even early in the process.
We are always looking for methods that work to offer to our patients. Coolsculpting freezes fat and gets rid of fat from resistant areas without causing any downtime. But we find that the results are better if one is on a program that addresses all of the different areas such as hormones, supplements and diet and exercise.
Dr. Nitin Bawa, MD is a board certified Internal Medicine physician with a special interest in bio-identical hormones, weight loss, lasers and aesthetics.
