What is the Role of Counseling in Management of Obesity?

Introduction

A diagnosis of obesity is made when a person’s BMI exceeds 30. The body mass index (BMI) is calculated by dividing your weight in kgs by your height in meters squared. BMI is good for diagnosing obesity but its major drawback is that it does not measure body fat percentage. Some people may have a higher BMI due to muscle weight or other reasons.

Obesity can cause many psychological issues that lower your quality of life like feeling shameful of your body image, having low self-esteem, difficulties in your sexual life, being bullied, isolating yourself from other people because of shame, and reduced performance at school or job. All these issues can be solved by seeking help from Fairfax weight loss counseling.

How Can You Avoid Regaining Weight After Treatment of Obesity?

How Can You Avoid Regaining Weight After Treatment of Obesity?

Relapse is a commonly encountered problem in the management of obesity because it requires serious commitment and consistency in exercise, dieting, and any other treatment. Weight will be regained when you discontinue the medications and lifestyles that were treating obesity. Some patients will also regain weight even after they have received surgery when they do not keep up with exercise and dieting.

You should continue exercising even after you have attained your desired weight with a minimum of 1 hour dedicated to exercise per day. You will have to diet and be physically active for a very long time. You should join a support group to help you maintain weight loss.

How Will You Benefit from Counselling for Weight loss?

A psychologist will help you to identify what triggers your weight gain like stress, anxiety, boredom, or sadness which is known as psychological hunger. Knowing the exact trigger will guide the psychologist to help you cope with the situation and avoid these triggers.  The psychologist will help you to discover new, healthy habits.

Therapy also helps to boost your esteem thus increase the efficiency of your weight loss program. Therapy will also provide you with the emotional support that you require to be able to go to the gym or even jog outside. Therapy will also help you to restore relationships with your family and friends that you had cut lose because you were ashamed of your weight.

Therapy will help you to cope with issues like bullying without using food as a consolation. Therapy also motivates you and enables you to keep going and be consistent in weight loss. It also helps to develop a positive body image, boost your confidence, and prevent relapse by removing the barriers of weight loss.

Therapy also ensures that your expectations from weight loss are realistic and helps you to be mindful of what you eat. Therapy also monitors how your weight loss journey is going and advises on any changes that should be made. Therapy assesses your willingness to make changes in your lifestyle and advises you on behavioral changes and benefits of weight loss. Counseling supplements other forms of treatment like exercise and dieting.

Therapy also teaches you to be kind to yourself and avoid beating yourself up because of being overweight. You also get to learn mindful eating like dealing with your emotional needs without food and learn to enjoy your new diet.

Conclusion

Counseling is an effective way of managing weight loss, especially when it accompanies dieting and physical exercise. Therapy teaches you to love yourself, to identify what triggers your weight problems, and to cope with the changes in lifestyle. I would highly recommend therapy for any person who is dealing with obesity.