With adult obesity rates as high as 42% in the United States, it’s probable that you will see patients needing or wanting to lose weight in your practice—if you haven’t already.1
What you say to them and how you support their journeys can change everything. We’ve put together some suggestions on how to best motivate your patients to reach weight loss success.
Encourage Regular Check-Ins
If you’re only seeing your weight loss patients once or twice a year for annual wellness exams, tracking progress and staying the course will be more difficult for both your patients and you as their supporter.
Let your patients know they can schedule check-in appointments as often as once a month (with consideration of how busy your practice is). Recommend appropriate blood tests so they can see other physiological victories you can’t measure on the scale.
Don’t Give Stock Advice
Your overweight patients have probably heard the same old “just eat less/move more/avoid sugar!” platitudes more times than they can count. And while eating healthier portions, exercising more often, and consuming less sugar are all ways to support healthy weight loss, they are not always easy to incorporate into patients’ lifestyles. It’s more useful to share actual resources with your patients, such as healthy meal plans or workout routines.
If you’re giving vague weight loss advice because you don’t know how to best support your patient, it may be best to refer them out to another type of specialist—such as a dietician for nutrition, a personal trainer for movement, or even a therapist to address mental health.
Support Goals That Focus on Progress—Not Deadlines
Healthy weight loss involves a lifestyle change, not a quick fix. Help your patients craft realistic weight loss goals that track overall progress versus ones with strict deadlines. For example, a short-term goal to swap nightly dessert for fruit for two weeks is more attainable than a large goal to quit sugar entirely. Feeling like they “failed” to meet a weight loss goal (even if it was too big or too vague to achieve) is detrimental to patients. Progress looks different for each person!
Jumpstart Weight Loss Success with CONTRAVE
For patients with obesity who have been eating healthier and exercising more and still aren’t seeing results, consider adding prescription medication for chronic weight management (weight reduction and maintenance) tailored to individual needs and comorbidities.
Medication like CONTRAVE may help patients who are struggling with emotional eating and powerful food cravings. To see who may be right for CONTRAVE, please see Prescribing Information and our CONTRAVE patient profiles.
References: 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adult Obesity Facts. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reviewed May 2022. Accessed December 11, 2023.
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