When you think about losing weight or inches, the physical benefits like improved heart health, mobility, and fitting into smaller clothes likely come to mind first. But the impacts of sustainable weight loss extend far beyond just your body’s outer appearance.
At Longevity Healthcare, we believe that true wellness is an integrated journey of the mind, body, and spirit. That’s why today we’re shining a light on the profound positive effects that shedding unwanted pounds and inches can have on your mental and emotional wellbeing.
If you’ve been struggling with persistent anxiety, low self-confidence, mood swings, or lack of motivation, your weight could be an unexpected influencing factor. Understanding the mental health impacts of losing inches provides a powerful source of motivation to continue your health journey.
Many functional medicine clinicians, like Longevity Healthcare, are transitioning to team-based care with the integration of health coaches. One area in which health coaches are effecting change is in dietary and nutritional lifestyle modification.
Health coaches can help patients achieve and maintain realistic dietary change at a pace that works for them. Research suggests that energy-restricted diets are not only ineffective in promoting long-term weight loss but may also predispose individuals to regain fat; food restriction can also trigger changes in energy metabolism, endocrine function, and, thus, body composition. Behavioral treatment may be more effective for both clinicians and patients.
A 2016 systematic review of general knowledge in adults across five continents by Barbosa et al found that greater nutrition knowledge correlated with general well-being as well as socioeconomic factors, especially educational attainment, which may affect both the access to care and healthy foods as well as the knowledge and ability to implement better nutrition.
Peter Muran, M.D. owner of Longevity Healthcare Center in Newport Beach, CA has over 30 years of experience providing care to patients in a variety of settings. Dr. Muran looks at his patient’s health as a whole when developing a treatment plan. His mission is to focus on listening and understanding his patient’s mind, body, and spirit. Taking a patient-centered approach to healing, Peter Muran, M.D.’s philosophy is to blend internal medicine and naturopathic medicine.
Dr. Muran takes a functional medicine approach that looks for the root cause of the patient’s ailments. Through his years of experience, he has found that this root cause is almost always inflammation. In identifying the inflammation there is an emphasis on the external and internal environment, metabolic pathways, genetics, hormonal balance, neurological and psychological well-being, immune health, the ability of the body to detox, and gastrointestinal health. It also includes the balancing of the neurotransmitters and any influences of the DNA response.