Excess weight and obesity can increase the risk of many health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers. On the surface, the cause of obesity may be simple: if you consume more calories than you burn as energy through physical activity, then you’ll gain weight. But like many things, the simple explanation is often incomplete. The risk factors that contribute to obesity can be a complex combination of genetics, metabolic factors and lifestyle choices, among other things. Some endocrine disorders, diseases, and medications can cause your weight to increase.

Obesity is a chronic disease affecting more and more children, adolescents and adults. Healthcare professionals are seeing earlier onset of Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity-related depression in children and adolescents. The longer a person is obese, the more significant obesity-related depression in children and adolescents. The longer a person is obese, the more significant obesity-related risk factors become. Given the chronic diseases and conditions associated with obesity, and the fact that obesity is difficult to treat, prevention is extremely important. There are number of steps you can take to help prevent overweight and obesity during childhood and adolescence.

For many years, nutritional intervention studies have been focused on reducing dietary fat with little positive results over the long-term. One of the most studied strategies in the recent years for weight loss is the ketogenic diet. Many studies have shown that this kind of nutritional approach has a solid physiological and biochemical basis and is able to induce effective weight loss along with improvement in several cardiovascular risk parameters and athletic performance. It’s important to work with your medical professionals to determine what approach suits your specific weight management goals. Overall, diet and exercise are key pieces to promoting weight loss.

Through our Integrative Lifestyle Medicine workshops, you will learn more about the science behind weight loss, acquire better approach on maintaining healthy weight at individual levels, and develop a proactive plan to optimize your physiological resilience whilst building reserves needed to support your health. Join our workshop to be proactive about your health, your vitality and your performance.