E.O.

A Path To Control
After years of trying different diets with varying degrees of stamina and often short-lived results and ephemeral success I became aware of the George Washington University Weight Management Program after my thoughtful wife ordered the program’s brochure, which arrived in the mail in early January 2008.

Entitled “Obesity: A Program for Its Control,” the brochure summarized the Program’s philosophy and described its comprehensive approach to the treatment of obesity. I found it a very helpful introduction, as someone interested in signing up for the program, but I’d also recommend the brochure to anyone wrestling more generally with issues of weight management.

However, there was one particular statement in the brochure that really stood out for me, because it conveyed a simple and direct, yet profound, proposition: “Obesity can be controlled but it cannot be cured.” Some people struggling with weight management issues might find the stark nature of that statement to be pretty daunting, or even downright depressing. For some, it might connote an “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here …” philosophy.

Yet, for me, the statement presented an intriguing concept and a challenge: If not a “cure,” per se, then what exactly was the Program offering to its patients? The answer, it turned out, was captured in the other key word of the sentence “control.”

I embarked on the Program’s regimen in February 2008 and, as I write these words 10 months later, I have lost almost 40% of my starting body weight. As the Program’s brochure indicated would likely occur, most of that weight loss (more than 30% of my starting weight) was shed over the course of an initial 16-week stint on “Program A” the Program’s most rigorous program, using a complete meal replacement diet as the sole source of calories and nutrition. Staying with that regimen for the full four months required a certain level of discipline and dedication, but as the pounds began to fall away relatively quickly, the program became self-reinforcing for me.

The Program’s professionals understand that it is not always possible to adhere to a strict diet without any flexibility to adapt to the circumstances of daily life (e.g., a business lunch, or a social event), and they work with their patients to develop approaches to weight management that are designed to work effectively with the needs and circumstances of the individual patient.

Importantly, the Program insists that patients take a holistic approach as they learn how to exercise “control” over their weight management issues. Patients must attend weekly classes providing essential nutritional information and education about topics such as calorie utilization, metabolism, and meal planning; weekly professionally supervised discussion groups, covering a broad range of weight management topics, are also available. Basic exercise routines are encouraged through the use of the Program’s own exercise facilities, and there is a caring and dedicated team of physicians, dieticians, psychologists, personal trainers, and other health professionals available to enable patients to develop the tools including emotional self-awareness and accurate self-assessments to effectively address their weight issues with confidence and, ultimately, a renewed sense of control and purpose.

Especially at a time when so many things affecting our lives seem beyond our abilities to deal with, I find it strangely reassuring to know there is one critical area weight management and personal health where one can still exercise a meaningful and empowering degree of individual control, using the information, techniques and tools that the Program provides. By approaching the issue of obesity from what is essentially a comprehensive and long-term “disease-management” perspective, encompassing medical diagnosis and monitoring, nutrition information, exercise and emotional self-awareness, the Program provides motivated individuals with a path to achieving and maintaining weight loss and to sustained control over weight management issues. I encourage anyone seeking such control to explore what the WMP has to offer. — E.O.