I can’t quite disagree with the OP, but I agree with OCrenter about generalizing about an entire profession. My take is this: there’s a reason I’m a military physician. It completely eliminates the profit motive from my practice style. I make my decisions based on what my patient most needs, not what the drug rep gave me. To be honest, the thought of running a private practice and dealing with insurance companies fills me with great dread, and I have every intention of staying in the Navy until they throw me out.
In keeping with the spirit of the original post, I’d like to add an observation I’ve made. It seems to me (I realize I’m getting dangerously close to a generalization) that really good businessmen make really lousy physicians, and the converse appears to be true as well. You would not believe some of the stupid financial decisions I have seen some of my excellent colleagues make. The two professions seem to require very different minds.
Paramount, I think I can help. You didn’t post how much you weigh,or how old you are, and truthfully it probably doesn’t matter, it just gives me an idea how long this might take you. First and foremost, you must control your appetite. As far as carbs go, all the fad diets are pure rubbish. A 200 lb 40 year old male can eat 1500 calories of lard in a day and still lose weight. It all comes down to one simple formula: clories in less than calories out=weight loss. The way I do it when I have to lose a little weight is I go on a 48 hour fast, where I drink 500-600 calories of fruit juice over a weekend. When I start eating again Monday morning I can comfortably live with MUCH smaller portions. When I do this I can survive quite happily on 1500 calories/day.
Now for the most important part, and the one thing nobody talks about. When you diet your body goes into an energy conservation mode, and will actually break down muscle tissue preferentially. In this way, when you do gain the weight back you are actually INCREASING the percentage of body fat, making it even more difficult to lose the weight the next time. The secret is to strength train. If you do 2-3 sessions per week you will force your body to conserve the muscle tissue, and break down the fat twice as fast. The weight comes off like magic. I can easily lose 10 lbs a month doing this.
Something else that can be helpful is a food diary, where you write down absolutely everything you eat. I find that when people do this they discover they were eating more calories than they thought. By the way, about the strength training, it’s actually MORE important than aerobics while you are dieting, and even works great for women as well.
Good luck, weight loss is the easiest thing in the world in theory, and one of the most difficult things to do in practice. It can be done the old fashioned way, and is usually more successful. I personnally am quite biased against bariatric surgery, as my own father was a casualty of the practice.
Jeez, I think this is my longest post ever. I hope someone out there gets something worthwhile from it.
