First For Women – Doctors` Own Weight Loss Secrets

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August 29, 2011
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DOCTORS OWN
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LOSE 100+ LBS WITHOUT DIETING
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The supplement duo that
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The “skinny” tea that helped
Dr. Jampolis drop 43 lbs
The unusual move that
helped Dr. Chase drop 113 lbs
weight-loss discovery
How doctors lose weight
36 First for women
8/29/11
THEN:
177 lbs
NOW:
134 lbs
STILLS, FROM TOP: MEDIA BAKERY; C. GEIGER; ISTOCKPHOTO. TEXT: L. MA XBAUER
“Everyone—
even weight-loss
doctors—
struggles with
stress eating
when times are
tough.”
Melina Jampolis, M.D.,
41, San Francisco
Height: 5'6"
Three female M.D.s share the
healthy secrets that helped them
win their battle of the bulge
I outsmarted stubborn stress fat!
Dr. Jampolis
dropped 43 lbs!
MAIN PHOTO: Z. RUEL AS. HAIR AND MAKEUP: S. BISEL. ST YLIST: M. CHERISSE.
T
hey are the trained professionals charged with keeping
us healthy, yet according to
one medical doctor FIRST spoke
with, somewhere in the range of
two-thirds of American physicians
are overweight. How can that be,
when they have a world of information on how to maintain wellbeing at their fingertips?
Chalk it up to the same reasons­
that the rest of us struggle with
weight—stress, busyness, fatigue—
then throw in the pressure of night
shifts, constant exposure to cafeteria food and the sense of being
in the spotlight, knowing people
are looking to you for answers you
aren’t sure you have.
“When I was 285 pounds, I still
talked about weight with patients,
but I felt I lost a lot of credibility
with them,” explains Bernadette
Anderson, M.D., a family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, who has
lost 85 pounds. “They’re looking at
me and seeing that I don’t believe
in the changes I’m advocating
because I’m not doing it myself.”
Saundra Dalton-Smith, M.D.,
an internal medicine specialist in
Anniston, Alabama, can relate.
“You’d think after a medical-school
education I wouldn’t be a yo-yo
dieter, but I was.” Still, she clarifies,
“It’s not about not knowing what
to do, it’s about making the time.
Female physicians are like any other
busy woman—we don’t have time
to spend hours in a gym.”
So like many of the doctors
FIRST consulted who overcame the
obstacles to finally lose the weight,
Dr. Dalton-Smith ditched the notion
of a formal diet-and-exercise program and came up with her own
plan. We’ve rounded up the best
advice—straight from doctors who
can truly relate because they’ve
been there, too—so you can do
what they did. Mix and match the
slimming tips to create a healthy
formula that best suits your lifestyle, and get set to slim!
health
As a board certified physician nutrition specialist, Melina Jampolis, M.D.,
was up on all the latest thinking
about diets—and practicing what she
preached had kept her thin throughout her 30s. But when life threw her a
curveball, Dr. Jampolis learned firsthand what so many of her patients
already knew: “Everyone—even
weight-loss doctors—struggles with
stress eating when times are tough.”
Shortly after her 40th birthday, Dr.
Jampolis gave birth to her first child,
a boy who was born two months premature and needed to stay in the hospital’s NICU for a month. Plagued by
worry, Dr. Jampolis started gaining,
piling extra pounds on top of baby
weight. She admits, “I literally ate a
Frisbee-size cookie every day my son
was in the hospital just to try to make
myself feel better.”
Things didn’t get easier once Dr.
Jampolis brought her newborn home.
She was exhausted, and she knew what
the research said: Sleep deprivation
would further hinder her weightloss efforts. “It was challenging,” she
shares. “I had no time for sleeping, for
meal planning…no time for anything.”
As the weeks ticked by, Dr. Jampolis
began to feel a new pressure­—that
of a weight-loss expert who couldn’t
lose weight. Unsure of how to move
forward, she decided to view herself
as a patient. She thought about the
successful slimmers she had treated
and identified the strategy that made
the difference: Don’t make a million
changes at once—start small, then get
more strict as the pace of the weight
loss slows down. Read on for the baby
steps that helped this working mom
(and author of The Busy Person’s Guide
to Permanent Weight Loss) shed her
stress belly for good.
Cut calories, not
volume
at KaengRaeng.com). “I had shakes
for two meals a day, which meant I
didn’t have to plan. That’s great when
you are super busy.”
“I don’t feel satisfied eating birdlike portions,”
Dr. Jampolis
shares. “So I was
interested in studies­
at Penn State University showing that
people eat about the same volume of
food every day, regardless of calories.
I’ve found that cutting calories while
eating the same amount of food is
one of the easiest ways to avoid feeling
deprived.” Dr. Jampolis simply dilutes
condiments—when using barbecue
sauce, she mixes half sauce and half
water; for salad dressing, she blends
half balsamic and half vinegar; and she
cuts cream sauces with skim milk.
“I start the day with Numi Tea in
Maté Lemon [$7 for 18 bags, at
amazon.com]—a blend of maté and
green tea, which
may help improve
fat oxidation,” Dr.
Jampolis says. She
also points to the
benefit of freshbrewed over bottled: “Antioxidants
in green tea, which help fight the
inflammation associated with obesity, may degrade over time in water.”
Seal the deal with
meal replacements
Make breakfast
automatic
“To lose the last 5 pounds, I had to
stick to about 1,200 calories a day,” Dr.
Jampolis says. “That’s hard—you have
to plan carefully and I didn’t have the
energy.” So she turned to Kaeng Raeng
detox shakes ($100 for a six-day detox,
Sip a skinny tea
“I make a big frittata every Sunday,
then have a slice every day for a fast,
easy breakfast,” says Dr. Jampolis.
“The meal’s protein and fiber keep
my blood sugar steady, so my energy
stays up and my hunger is satisfied.”
Dr. Jampolis’s Super-Veggie Frittata
1 Tbs. olive oil or olive oil spray
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups torn fresh spinach (or
veggies of your choice)
12 eggs (use up to 3 yolks)
1 ⁄ 2 cup skim milk
1 ⁄ 3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
In large skillet over medium heat,
cook olive oil 30 sec., or until
heated. Add mushrooms and
spinach. Season with fresh herbs,
salt and pepper, if desired. Cook
1 to 2 min., until spinach is wilted.
In bowl, beat together eggs and
milk. Pour into skillet over veggies.
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook
5 to 7 min., or until eggs are firm.
First forstrategies
women 37
Turn for more8/29/11
fat-melting
weight-loss discovery
without feeling deprived!
Dr. Stein
dropped 100 lbs!
“Obesity needs
to be treated like
a disease. You’d
never tell someone
to treat their lupus
by getting on a
treadmill.”
THEN: 270 lbs
8/29/11
INSET: COURTESY OF DR. STEIN. STILLS, FROM LEFT: FOTOLIA; ISTOCKPHOTO; LIEBENSTEIN, J./STOCKFOOD MUNICH
NOW:
170 lbs
“I can give you the best of my knowledge,” Sara Stein, M.D., told her new
patient, as she had with so many others before. “But I probably don’t have
the answer, as you can clearly see.”
The reason for Dr. Stein’s candor:
She weighed 270 pounds and had not
been able to shed the fat that had
weighed her down since childhood,
despite numerous attempts. She says,
“If you could list 1,000 diets, I’ve
tried 1,001 over the years because
I’ve repeated at least one.”
Dr. Stein knew her weight was
holding her back—in many dimensions of her life. “I’m sure there were
opportunities I missed because of my
appearance,” she acknowledges. “I
became a workaholic to compensate
for anyone calling me fat and lazy.”
Eventually Dr. Stein was promoted
to department chief, and that professional success fueled her to get her personal life under control. This is insane,
she thought. Here’s this smart lady and
she can’t figure out how to lose weight.
As a psychiatrist who counsels
patients considering weight-loss surgery, it seems logical that Dr. Stein
would have plenty of support from
colleagues, but that wasn’t the case. In
a statement to the medical community on her website, Dr. Stein says, “If
I go to any one of you, even the most
esteemed physician or medical center,
you will tell me, ‘Eat less, move more.’
Or you’ll send me to your behavioral
health department because clearly
there’s something wrong with me.
There, I will receive medication for
depression and six weeks of therapy
about how I should love myself and
not eat chocolate. Or you’ll throw up
your hands and say I can have surgery, but I’m not sick enough to qualify yet…I should wait a few years.”
Dr. Stein explained to FIRST, “That
kind of treatment is absolutely wrong
for obese people. Obesity is a medical condition—one that includes fat
cells that are metabolically active;
genes, brain chemistry and endocrine
MAIN PHOTO: R. GARZ A. HAIR AND MAKEUP: B.C. HAWKINS. ST YLIST: T. WARNER. BACKGROUND: M. L ANGRIDGE/GET T Y IMAGES
I lost 100 lbs
Sara Stein, M.D.,
56, Cleveland
Height: 5'1"
38 First for women
health
systems­that are altered; bodies that
have chronic inflammation. Obesity
needs to be treated like a disease.
You’d never tell someone to treat their
lupus by getting on a treadmill.”
That’s why Dr. Stein went another
route. She identified the underlying
causes of her weight troubles (which
included food allergies and hormonal imbalances) and systemically
addressed them. What worked for her:
As a bonus, her skin became smooth,
firm and clear—the psoriasis, eczema,
seborrheic keratosis and pigmentation
changes that plagued her cleared up.
Says Dr. Stein, “People often ask what
I put on my skin. The answer is, I put
omega-3 fish oil in my body. The skin
is a reflection of overall health.”
Savor some dark
­chocolate medicine
Studies have shown that virtually
100 percent of overweight women
have low levels of vitamin D, a nutrient proven to play a key role in weight
management. So after having blood
work done to gauge her needs, Dr.
Stein began taking a 10,000 IU vitamin
D3 supplement daily. She notes that in
addition to activating the loss of belly
fat, D delivers a range
of benefits that
can be life changing. “My mood
improved after
the first month,
and my energy
improved in the next two months. I
knew I was making progress in the
fifth month, when a four-syllable­
word popped into my conversation
spontaneously­—a word I previously
would have had to search my mind
for, if I found it at all. My brain was
back and my head was clear! The best
“When people used to ask me what
I wanted to be when I grew up, I
answered, ‘a chocolate-chip cookie,’”
says Dr. Stein. “That’s how much I
loved chocolate.” As an adult, she
craved and binged
on “endless pieces”
that had only
10 percent
cocoa. Then
she read some
intriguing research:
“Multiple studies have demonstrated that eating
1.4 oz. of 70 percent dark chocolate
will increase serotonin levels to treat
depression, lower stress-hormone levels to facilitate weight loss, act as an
antioxidant and provide cellular protection from stroke and heart attack,”
Dr. Stein explains. “Now I view the
food as medicine.” In fact, she reports
that after she started to eat dark chocolate daily, “All my chocolate cravings
disappeared, my mood was relaxed
and generally happy and I never felt
deprived. Plus, I lost weight.”
Outwit fast-food
cravings­with omegas
A blood test revealed that Dr. Stein’s
levels of omega-3 fatty acids, healthy
fats that ward off cravings, were low.
Once she started taking an omega-3
pill, her cravings for greasy foods
vanished. “I stopped spending the day
thinking about french fries!” she raves.
Take the vitamin that
acts like a diet pill
part was in month six, when my
vitamin D level stabilized and all the
chronic pain I had suffered for years
was gone.” Dr. Stein shares her experience with patients, who enjoy similar results. “I find with my patients
that vitamin D is the single most
effective antidepressant I have ever
prescribed.” Dr. Stein says it’s important for women to get a blood test
to determine their individual needs
(which are generally in the range of
2,000 IU to 10,000 IU daily).
Don’t give up your
comforts
“Beyond the physical condition,
obesity can be a psychosocial condition of depression and loneliness. It hurts to be fat,” says Dr.
Stein, who wrote the book Obese
From the Heart. She points out that
overweight people suffer enough—
enduring a deprivation diet is just
too much. So she focused on things
that didn’t cause pain. “My first
change was to drink coffee instead
of lattes. And if I really wanted a
latte, I would have one.” Dr. Stein
accepted that change would come
slowly, but would be healthy and
sustainable. “Easy, sequential
changes add up over time, and give
your body and your mind a chance
to heal with each small adjustment.”
Doctors agree: Protein is the key!
There’s a trend in the medical
community, says Haya Rubin,
M.D., an internist who lost
48 pounds. “A lot of doctors are
doing low-carb approaches.”
Indeed, almost all the experts
FIRST spoke with cited the power
of protein. Some simply upped
their intake, while others followed
high-protein diets for fast results.
“Low-carb/high-protein plans
help control blood sugar and
insulin levels,” explains Dr. Rubin.
“That’s important because when
blood sugar
drops and
insulin surges,
you get very
hungry.”
Protein is
especially beneficial for women
over 40, adds Stuart Jeanne
Bramhall, M.D., a psychiatrist who
lost 20 pounds. She explains that
as we age, muscle is gradually
replaced by fat, but protein helps
preserve lean muscle mass—and
keep metabolic rate high.
xx/xx/xx
8/29/11
First forstrategies
women 39
Turn for more
fat-melting
weight-loss discovery
health
saved my own life!
I may have
Dr. Stein
dropped 100 lbs!
“Now that I’ve
lost the weight,
I am better able
to take care
of friends and
­family.”
Chere Chase, M.D., 44,
Winston-Salem, NC
Height: 5'5"
THEN:
276 lbs
NOW:
163 lbs
40 First for women
8/29/11
Eat all day
Dr. Chase foolproofs her day by toting
a lunch box packed with snacks and
mini meals to work. “My schedule
is so busy that I rarely have time to
think about where to find healthy
food,” she explains. “But if it is
already prepared and packed for me, I
have fewer excuses.” Some lunch-box
staples: turkey pepperoni and low-fat
cheese on crackers; peanut butter with
bananas, carrot sticks or celery; and
prepackaged 100-calorie snack packs.
Then she grazes throughout the day,
which wards off hunger and keeps
metabolic rate high.
Go halfsies
STILLS, FROM LEFT: NILSSON, P./STOCKFOOD MUNICH; ISTOCKPHOTO (2)
NOW:
170 lbs
methods that fail to offer an interdisciplinary approach to weight loss,”
Dr. Chase says. “To be successful it’s
necessary to focus on the medical,
physical, social, psychological and economic changes that are required for
weight loss. Each woman must understand what makes her uniquely at risk
for weight gain and failure to manage
her weight—for example, endocrine,
social and emotional factors. Once I
started to do that, I was able to succeed.” The strategies that helped Dr.
Chase finally lose the weight—plus
lower her cholesterol and blood pressure and increase her energy:
MAIN PHOTO: K. PEARCE. HAIR, MAKEUP AND WARDROBE: G. GARDNER
Dr. Chase
dropped 113 lbs!
Sara Stein, M.D.,
56, Cleveland, OH
Height: 5'1"
“When everyone else gained the classic freshman 15 in college, I put on
70 pounds,” reveals Chere Chase, M.D.,
who soothed her homesickness by
reaching for food. Her heartache only
intensified when six family members
passed on over a two-year period—all
due to obesity-related illnesses like
heart attack and stroke. Wanting to
do whatever she could to spare other
families the pain of losing loved ones
to preventable diseases, Dr. Chase pursued a career in neurology with a focus
on stroke and preventive medicine. But
all the while, she continued down her
own path to obesity.
“The on-call schedule during my
medical training made it difficult for
me to establish a healthy eating and
exercise routine,” Dr. Chase recalls.
During a typical time-crunched day,
she’d skip meals, then grab a few
vending machine candy bars as she
left the hospital. On the way home,
she’d pick up fast food for dinner.
Over the years Dr. Chase cycled
through every single popular diet
approach, including a hospital-based
liquid program and prescription appetite suppressants (which she says are
the most popular weight-loss method
among female health-care providers
because the pills give energy and allow
women to work through the day without stopping to eat). Still, her excess
pounds refused to budge.
Then one day a patient said something that made Dr. Chase realize
she needed to do better—for herself
and those who looked up to her. “You
know why I love you?” the patient
asked. “Because you can understand
me. We’re both overweight.”
“I didn’t want my personal choices
to be seen as endorsements,” Dr.
Chase says of her yo-yo dieting
ways. Humbled to become a better
role model for her patients and her
extended family, she vowed to adopt
healthy, sustainable habits.
“Most patients—myself included—
fall short because they follow diet
A few mental
games help Dr.
Chase keep her
hand out of
the cookie jar.
For example,
she’ll look at
pictures of clothing she hopes to wear
one day, or try on clothes one or two
sizes smaller than her current size.
But if she still feels like indulging, she
doesn’t deny herself. “When all else
fails, I find two or three other people
to share a cupcake with me. That way
I get to splurge without the guilt of
falling off the wagon.”
Learn how to tread
water
On those occasions when more
than half the cupcake is eaten, Dr.
Chase gives herself a pass. “Allowing
myself treats is important, as is
acknowledging that minor—and
major—setbacks­are not the end of
the world.” The analogy that helps
her maintain that mind-set: “When
people teach you how to swim, they
also teach you how to tread water
if you get tired,” she explains. “And
when people teach you to ski, they
also teach you how to fall safely. It’s
important to remember that you
can’t swim upstream constantly
without taking breaks, and that
sooner or later we all fall down.”
Merge cardio and
­toning
“Doing weight training and cardio
together keeps the routine from
becoming boring,”
says Dr. Chase, who
makes her workout do double
duty by using a
kettlebell. Why
that’s smart:
Researchers at
Alabama’s Auburn
University found that a
20-minute­kettlebell workout burns
as many calories as an hour on the
treadmill and 60 percent more calories than lifting traditional weights.
For a great beginner move, try the
classic “swing”: Stand with your legs
shoulder-width apart and your knees
bent. Holding a kettlebell with both
hands (or for a similar effect try a jug
of milk), let your arms hang down,
then raise the kettlebell over your
head with both arms. Swing the
weight back down and bend forward
slightly so the weight goes between
your legs. Continue swinging in a
fluid motion for 10 repetitions.
More top tips from
docs who’ve lost
LOCK THE
CABINETS
“I put child
safety locks on
my kitchen cabinets. Opening
them gave me a
30-second pause to think about
the junk food I would be eating.
I also found that when tempting
food is locked away, I don’t think
about it as much.”
—Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D., a
­psychologist who lost 84 lbs
TAKE A BREATHER “I hit a
hard mental plateau during my
weight-loss journey. It was like
I was in the middle of a marathon, and frankly I got tired. So
I stopped focusing on calories
and instead told myself to try
to maintain the 100 pounds I’d
already lost. When the numbers
on the scale started to move
down effortlessly again, I recommitted to slimming.”
—Birdie Varnedore, M.D., a
­neurologist who lost 143 lbs
USE THIS ACRONYM “Any
time I found myself reaching
for junk, I asked myself, ‘FLAB?’
Was I eating because I was frustrated, lonely, anxious or bored?
If I answered yes to any of those
reasons, I put the food down
and found an alternate activity.
I even put Post-its around my
kitchen that said FLAB.”
—Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D.
FOLLOW THE 500 RULE “With
my schedule I ate a lot of fast
food, so I made a spreadsheet of
all the items I could order that
were 500 calories or less. I’d eat
a healthy breakfast and lunch,
then for dinner I’d choose something off that list—like threepiece chicken strips with buffalo
sauce, a medium fruit cup and a
diet lemonade from Chick-fil-A.
That’s just 470 calories.”
—Saundra Dalton-Smith, M.D.,
an internist who lost 62 lbs
8/29/11 First for women
41