Being overweight can affect more than your appearance and self-esteem. Maintaining more than your body’s normal weight increases your risk of developing chronic medical conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes as well as damaging your joints with the burden of too much weight.

While maintaining a healthy weight reduces your likelihood of developing these conditions and other health complications, achieving your goal can often seem out of reach. However, it only takes moderate weight loss to improve your well-being and long-term health.

Also, the benefits you earn with small victories can help motivate you to remain committed to your goal and achieve the full advantages associated with maintaining a healthy weight.

No matter how much weight you have to lose, you can achieve the fastest results by enrolling in a medical weight loss program. This managed approach to weight loss ensures that you have the tools you need to lose weight and keep it off for long-term wellness.

Weight loss specialist Winnie King, MD, a board-certified physician who maintains a private aesthetics and wellness practice in Shenandoah and Houston Texas, provides results-oriented weight loss for patients with a wide range of goals. Ongoing supervision ensures that you achieve your short-term and long-term objectives for continued success and measurable results.

Losing weight as part of a medically supervised weight loss program can help you recognize your accomplishments on your way to your goal. As you begin to lose weight, you can expect to earn the following health benefits:

Reduction of heart attack and stroke risk

You can reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke by losing just 5% to 10% of your body weight. The results can improve your cholesterol levels, and lower your blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Losing weight reduces the amount of stress and strain on your heart. Minor weight loss also reduces your triglycerides and LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and increases your HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol). With less weight, you have less fat and less risk of plaque forming in your coronary arteries where it can cause a heart attack.

Losing weight can also reduce the risk of a blood clot forming and traveling to your heart, lungs, or brain. Almost 80% of strokes are attributed to a blood clot or other blockage of the blood supply to the brain.

Prevention of joint deterioration

Being overweight accelerates the natural deterioration of your joints. At any weight, your knee joints support a load equal to four times your body weight when you walk or stand. If you weigh 200 pounds, that’s 800 pounds of force. While every pound adds 4 more pounds of force on your joints, every pound you lose reduces the load at the same rate.

Losing just 10 pounds reduces the load by 40 pounds. While losing weight can’t reverse joint damage caused by being overweight, it can restore function, prevent disease progression, and reduce painful joint symptoms.

Remission of Type 2 diabetes

Research indicates that you may be able to initiate remission of Type 2 diabetes if you lose just 10% of your body weight during the first five years you have the disease. That’s a reduction of 20 pounds for a 200-pound person.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter how fast you lose the weight or which method you use. The outcome of losing 10% of body weight allowed patients to cure themselves of diabetes and reduce their risk of the complications associated with this typically lifelong and progressive disease.

Treatment of obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which you involuntarily stop breathing while you’re asleep, deprives your body of the rest it needs to maintain good health and fight off disease. The condition is common among overweight people, who are more likely to have extra tissue in the back of their throat. When this occurs, the tissue can fall back over the throat and block the airway while they sleep.

Left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to serious complications such as high blood pressure, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. Losing 10% of your body weight can significantly reduce the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea and your risk of complications. This moderate weight loss can potentially cure the condition with the reduction of the extra fat tissue.

Don’t delay in starting your weight loss journey. Find out how we can help you achieve your goals and improve your health. Call our Shenandoah or Houston office today for a consultation.