Sponsored By: BEFORE AND AFTER WEIGHT LOSS CLINICS
Ask most people what they would like to change about themselves and you’ll get a common answer: lose weight. It’s the top resolution on January 1. It’s the Monday morning mantra. Despite good intentions, many people struggle with obesity and poor diet. Instead of fresh fruit, they pick French fries.
Lee McCaskill understands the struggle. After being bedridden for months due to illness, she gained 100 pounds. She tried some 10 different weight-loss plans, but simply couldn’t drop the weight. Not until her aunt, a registered dietician, created a nutritional plan to jumpstart McCaskill’s metabolism.
The plan has been successfully used for 17 years in McCaskill’s weight loss clinics, Before and After Weight Loss Clinics, and nationwide program, Belly Buster Diet Inc. Headquartered in Florida, Before and After Weight Loss Clinics has a new location in Mount Pleasant.
Even though “diet” may be a four-letter word to most people, McCaskill says there are four things people can do to help them lose weight permanently – without “dieting.”
1. Change your mindset.
Temporary diets are not a permanent solution to a weight problem. Getting a grip on emotional eating is. A short diet that’s followed by a return to old eating habits gives people permission to gain the weight back – in other words, permission to fail. “Something has to happen in your brain where you decide to make a lifestyle change permanently,” McCaskill says.
She is big proponent of learning diet substitutions so people can enjoy healthier versions of foods they like. McCaskill devoted an entire chapter of her book “Belly Bustin’ Tips” (Quails Nest Publishing, 2015) to this very concept. And she’s done it herself.
“I love Italian food. I finally understood that I had to find substitutions I could live with,” she says. So instead of pasta, she’s learned to love zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash. Instead of frying okra, McCaskill bakes it. She swapped French fries for baked zucchini fries.
“Now when someone comes to the clinic, we talk a lot about what their favorite foods are and what good substitutions are that they can try,” she says, “and we have cooking classes so they can try them.”
2. Get help for emotional eating.
McCaskill says a majority of people who are overweight are emotional eaters. At Before and After Weight Loss Clinics, behavioral therapists teach in-person and teleconference classes on emotional eating.
McCaskill went through the course herself – three times. She was able to figure out how something that happened in her childhood connected to emotionally reaching for a bowl of ice cream. “Until you sit down and talk to someone, you don't know why you overeat,” she says.
That therapy is a key component of Before and After Weight Loss Clinics and one of the ways the clinic differs from other weight loss programs, McCaskill says.
3. Get educated.
McCaskill says one of the key problems with other weight loss programs is that people go to weekly weigh-ins, but they don’t really learn anything about nutrition or developing healthy habits.
“You have to have an education about food and what you're eating,” she says. “You have to know the difference between a carb and a protein as well as how to read a label.”
McCaskill does this in fun ways – themed cooking classes with healthy recipes and prizes, for example.
4. Start exercising.
While Before and After Weight Loss Clinics do not offer exercise classes, they stress the importance of exercise. Clinics are located near fitness centers. In Mount Pleasant, the clinic is in the same shopping plaza as Planet Fitness. McCaskill suggests people join and work out with those trainers.
Even very obese clients are taught chair exercises that they can do until they’ve lost some weight and can walk for exercise or eventually bike and swim.
“We really encourage them to commit to be fit – it strengthens the heart, improves longevity, creates stronger bones, and helps them keep their weight down,” she says.
To learn more about how Before and After Weight Loss Clinics can help you lose the weight – and keep it off, visit BestDietSource.com or come into the Mount Pleasant location at 561 Belle Station Blvd. or call 843-972-7658.
