Weight loss

Every day there's a new and crazy solution to the problem of excess weight that afflicts people so much; it may seem easy: take a drug, stop eating or exercise exhaustively and you'll lose weight - but you won't lose it in a healthy way, as it will be at the expense of burning muscle, bone and other tissues that nobody wants to lose!

Losing weight in an unhealthy and unsustainable way makes it practically impossible to maintain the results achieved, simply because an organism that has been attacked by a “shock treatment” tends to gain back everything it has lost, meaning that you end up with the “accordion effect”, the terror of all those who are in the relentless pursuit of the much-desired weight loss.

Here are 10 tips to help you:

1. Adopt and maintain good lifestyle habits at all times (https://icaro.med.br/15habitos/) - eating right, sleeping right, drinking water, managing stress well, breathing better, avoiding intoxication and exercising regularly, for example, are the key to any successful health outcome, and it would be no different when the intention is to lose weight effectively and healthily.

2. Fuel your body - your metabolism is its quality and speed of functioning; don't let it lack water, food and oxygen, which need to be supplied in sufficient quantity and quality - anything that reduces your metabolism will make you fat and bloated, not least as a way of saving and storing fuel.

3. Reduce sugar in your life - simple carbohydrates, so abundantly present in rice, potatoes, pasta, bread, cakes, cookies and the like - fatty tissue forms its reserves basically by converting these sugars into triglycerides, the main storage components of fat cells.

4. Deflate yourself - any inflammation in your body tends to increase the functioning of your fatty tissue, which then stores more fat and increases in size; any retention also increases water retention, swelling, which also contributes to your weight gain.

5. Remove or reduce gluten, milk and dairy products from your life as much as possible - by various different mechanisms, they inflame you and this, as we already know, makes you fat and bloated.

6. Detoxify yourself - poisoning steals energy and resources from your body and this slows down your metabolism and inflames you (often the person adheres to a healthy lifestyle, but because they're still intoxicated they can't see the results of their change as quickly as they'd like, which leads to frustration; it's always good to investigate poisoning by aluminum, mercury, lead, for example).

7. Do not take medication without medical supervision and without solving the above factors or you may not get results, or even experience a lot of unpleasant side effects - those who solve the above factors often don't even need weight loss drugs!

8. Identify the cause - bad habits, anxiety, hormonal imbalance, many factors interfere with the difficulty of losing weight; if the underlying problem is anxiety, this needs to be addressed, in other situations hormone levels are unbalanced and there is no good metabolism without hormonal balance: malfunctioning of the thyroid gland, for example, is something to be investigated in cases of weight loss difficulty, when the patient has already regulated their habits and still has a slow metabolism. Many of the root causes are resolved only when the person adopts a healthy lifestyle, but in many other cases the problem is multifactorial, so a professional analysis can help a lot.

9. Consider the targeted use of supplements - as long as they are recommended by a qualified professional, there are now supplements that can help a lot in the weight loss process, such as MitBurn, Wasabi Gene, Berberine, Cactin, Morosil, Citrus Aurantium, Capsain, OEA, Paradoxin, L-carnitine, Safflower oil (CLA), Diglothin, Metabolid, Teacrine, Phytgen, etc. but they should only be prescribed taking into account the individuality of the patient and, as already mentioned, by a qualified professional.

10. Have excellent professional support for your weight loss process, whenever possible - preferably from professionals who know how to work in an integrative way, who are up-to-date and attend to you in a humanized way, so that they can help you achieve your goals.

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👨‍⚕️ Common clinical case:

“A patient who wants to lose weight seeks medical help. After a very brief consultation, lasting less than 10 minutes, she is prescribed a formula containing Anfepramone or Femproporex, combined with diazepam, fluoxetine and tiratricol... She barely receives any advice about the medication, about a healthy diet, drinking water properly and taking regular exercise. He had the formula formulated and began to lose weight rapidly, but also began to feel tired, discouraged and sleepy, alternating with great anxiety, palpitations, diarrhea/constipation and stomach pain. You reach the desired weight, but you don't feel very well and soon you regain that weight or even gain a little more than you had initially. You decide to seek medical help again... And the cycle repeats itself.”

This is not an unusual story. Nor is it fictitious. It happens daily and repeatedly all over the world. The search for the perfect shape, quickly and with as little effort or sacrifice as possible is incessant and seems not to recognize the limits between what is possible and what is absurd, harmful and sometimes even fatal.

So let's recognize the mistakes made in this story.

✅ Mistake 1: Inadequate help

Multidisciplinarities: Any patient wishing to lose weight should seek YES medical advice, but not only that. Nutritional support is essential, since an adequate diet is one of the main pillars not only for losing weight, but also for maintaining an ideal weight; in addition, it is desirable to be accompanied by a trained physical education professional, in order to maximize the results of the treatments;

✅ Mistake 2: Wrong guidelines

Full review: It's impossible for a health professional to get a reliable and complete picture of their patient's needs in such a short space of time. Slimming may seem simple, and it is; but healthy weight loss, without harmful repercussions for the patient, requires patience, detail and getting to know the individual. How can you find out who your client is, their lifestyle habits, the illnesses they and their family have had, their medications and treatments... in 10 minutes? This increases the chance of erroneous opinions/diagnoses which, more often than not, will lead to erroneous treatments; inadequate and potentially harmful to those who follow them;

✅ Mistake 3: Haste

Speed of results: The faster you want to lose weight, the less natural the process tends to be. The reasoning here is simple: If the body takes a certain amount of time to put on weight as a result of fat accumulation, it should wait a similar amount of time for it to naturally break down, consume and eliminate those same deposits. If this process is accelerated, the patient should be carefully monitored and their body properly supplemented with healthy lifestyle habits that allow it to withstand the stress it will be subjected to: Yes, losing weight generates stress and can be a source of illness if not done properly;

✅ Mistake 4: “Magic” formulas”

“Amphetamines”: Amfepramone and Femproporex are not amphetamines, BUT they are by-products of them and act essentially like them: They speed up metabolism, suppress appetite and increase mood and fat burning... However, as every “benefit” presupposes potential losses, in a significant number of cases the user also suffers, more often the higher the dosage or the longer the period of use:

- Anxiety or depression, sometimes alternating, sometimes associated with hallucinations and even panic attacks;

- Disturbances in libido that tend to evolve into a decrease or even complete loss;

- Tachycardia, palpitations, sweating, stomach pains, dry mouth, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating... The list of side effects is long and can often be observed;

- Worsened absorption of oral medications (contraceptives, painkillers, etc.);

- Withdrawal/tolerance syndrome: Difficulty quitting the medication, mainly due to distress, drowsiness, difficulty thinking and, very commonly, weight gain;

Fat loss with these substances is ALWAYS accompanied by a concomitant loss of proteins (essential for muscles), minerals (bones, cartilage, blood), vitamins, carbohydrates (sugars, which provide the main part of the body's energy needs). In addition, they should not be used by diabetics, hypertensive patients, heart patients, malnourished people or people with nutrient deficiencies (for example, in osteoporosis, anemia, coagulation disorders, etc.), depressed people, anxious people (or people who are prone to these pathologies).

For all these reasons, these substances should be used under careful judgment and monitoring and only for large amounts of weight to be lost.

✅ Mistake 5: “Natural” formulas”

Natural“ formulas: Formulas are often prescribed or advertised as “natural” simply because they contain herbal medicines. What often happens, however, is that the formula contains synthetic chemical substances such as anfepramone and femproporex (discussed above), diazepan or bromazepan (tranquilizers), tiratricol (chemically similar to thyroid hormone), fluoxetine (antidepressant), among others. They are combined with cáscara sagrada, glucomannan, centella asiatica and garcinia, the latter of which are actually herbal. In this way, the “natural” character of the formula has been lost, making it a cocktail of substances that, at least from a chemical point of view, act directly on the brain. On the other hand, the notion has spread that plants, “if they don't do good, they don't do harm”; this is wrong and VERY DANGEROUS! Herbal medicines should be prescribed by a competent doctor who is aware of their effects and, above all, their indications, contraindications and side effects (which they also have). So be careful with so-called natural formulas: asking your doctor, for example, to explain what each component of the formula does is a good start... After all, it's YOU who will be taking the medication, isn't it?

What works:

Healthy weight loss: As previous articles have shown, there is NO healthy weight loss or weight maintenance without adopting healthy lifestyle habits:

• -Ingest water and fiber properly;
• Eat every 2 hours (maximum every 3 hours);
• Exercise regularly.

Who gives up these tips...

• Or you won't lose weight;
• Or put the weight back on;
• Or you're choosing to rely on medication for life to maintain an unrealistic appearance of health.

Failing to comply with the above suggestions is bad for your health; not least because an ideal weight is NOT in itself an indication of a healthy body and mind, no matter how much the obsessive pursuit of fitness may try to promote it. What's more, persisting with “mistakes” can even be partially or totally ineffective for weight loss and, in the medium and long term, unnecessarily costly.

It's worth thinking about and opting for HEALTH; first and foremost... Always!