How to maintain your ideal weight. Advice from Dr Thierry Hertoghe
Of all the topics related to health and wellbeing, the topic of weight and body shape is full of harmful myths and unsubstantiated prejudices like no other. From a medical point of view, how many ridiculous and illiterate tips are offered as “universal recipes for weight loss” and “miracle diets”?
Dr Thierry Hertoghe, President of the World Society of Antiaging Medicine and a partner of QualeVita clinics, has created his own series of tips to maintain optimal weight. His system does not promise “instant effects” or a “model’s figure in a week’s time”. After all, the ideal body is first and foremost a healthy body. It is based on the most recent findings on hormonal and anti-ageing medicine.
Here are seven tips from Dr. Hertoghe:
- Be sure to get enough sleep. Chronic lack of sleep causes a production of hormones that make us overeat.
- Drink more water. Make it a simple habit: drink a glass of water before eating. This will prepare your stomach, improve digestion and, ultimately, lead to weight loss.
- Chew your food well. Ideally, each piece should be chewed 5-10 times longer than you are used to. At first, this will seem strange, but you will quickly get used to it and start eating a lot less food just because it will be absorbed better!
- Remember proteins. Make sure that your diet is based on low-fat protein foods, such as lean meat or lentils. They can be digested perfectly.
- Eat less salt and sugar. Sweet and savoury flavours tease our appetite. Salt and sugar make us eat much more than necessary.
- Focus on food when eating. It has been proven that people who watch TV, use their iPad or a mobile phone while eating food end up consuming much more than their body needs. Good food is in itself a great pleasure. Devote your attention to it.
The most important question is what you should eat to lose weight. Modern medicine knows about safe appetite regulators that allow you to eat less and more quickly. Popular opinion that you must starve painfully to lose weight is a harmful myth. (After a starvation diet, weight usually increases because of overeating.) Safe appetite regulators are chromium, lithium and the amino acid oxitriptan. Add foods rich in these elements to your diet or ask your doctor to choose the appropriate vitamins and medicines.
The most effective and safest tool for weight normalization is hormonal therapy. Each of our hormones is responsible for appetite and metabolism: leptin, MSH, oxytocin, cortisol, cholecystokinin. In modern medicine, unlike before, only natural bioidentical hormones are used. Their components are similar to those produced naturally by our body. The composition and dosage of medicines is adjusted to each individual patient, so they should be taken only under the supervision of a knowledgeable doctor.
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