Lose Weight and Keep it Off During These Stressful Times
By Rachel L. Goldman
If you’ve gained weight during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re not alone. High-calorie, high-carb comfort food recipes are a hot trend online. So many folks are baking, supermarkets are sold out of flour.
Now, as sheltering-at-home restrictions ease, you probably want to lose the “COVID 19” – those unwanted extra pounds.
The good news? Northern Westchester Hospital’s Center for Weight Management offers weight-loss strategies geared to your lifestyle now – being home much of the time, with added responsibilities and stress, maybe still not able to go to a gym. And just a few steps from the kitchen.
Strategies tailor-made for you
Your weight gain doesn’t have just one cause, right? That’s why the center offers you a range of services to help you succeed at weight loss. From medical screening and nutritional counseling to individual and group classes, possible referral to our surgical weight loss team and optional sessions with our exercise physiology team, plus a personalized exercise plan, we help you put all the pieces together to take off the pounds and keep them off.
Today’s new normal
Enjoy virtual dietician visits. Discover ways to be physically active without a gym membership. Learn the secrets of cooking up healthy meals. Snack without sabotaging your progress. (It’s possible!) Discover new ways to release stress that don’t involve eating. Plus, enjoy access to the center’s exclusive videos on eating mindfully, making snacks that are low in calories yet big on flavor and much more.
Winning weight-loss tips
- Prepare meals for the week on Sunday. Prep a big salad that can be varied each day with different additions. Cook up big portions of healthy comfort foods like a hearty soup, stew or chile.
- The gym is still closed? Discover other ways to exercise that you enjoy. Run on a track, walk in the neighborhood, get into free online exercise classes, put together a home gym. Build activity into your routine. It’s a terrific stress-buster!
- Develop a consistent sleep pattern. Aim for seven to eight hours sleep with consistent bedtime and wake times. When you’re overtired, you tend to eat more.
He’s Dancing Again!
One patient at the Center for Weight Management is a 55-year-old man who was a ballroom dancer when he was more physically fit. For the last 15 years, he struggled with weight, which peaked at 238 pounds.
By August 2019, when he came to the center, the dancing had fallen away and he felt anxious about returning to the ballroom community. We worked with him in many ways. He worked with our nutritionist, ditching prepared foods and learning how to incorporate more vegetables and fruits into his daily menu. He exercises in his home gym. Now he’s down to 210 pounds – and dancing again.
Oh, does it feel good to get back to his old self. He’s so much happier now that he’s doing what he loves. And he has lots more endurance when dancing. His target weight is 190. He knows he’ll get there. So do we.
Rachel L. Goldman is clinical coordinator of Northern Westchester Hospital’s Center for Weight Management in the Center for Healthy Living in Chappaqua. To make an appointment for a consultation, call 914-223-1780.
