Wellness has no age limit

Adult Weight Managemet

our Approach

Dr. Jenny Seger’s approach to achieving weight loss goals and healthy weight maintenance for her clients is holistic and comprehensive. Dr. Jenny’s program focuses on utilizing prescribed nutrition and lifestyle plans in addition to medications and surgical interventions – when appropriate. Not every patient requires medication to lose weight, but for those who do, it is important to work with someone with the knowledge and expertise to guide them safely through the entire process.

The 8 ELEMENTS OF HEALTH are not separate; rather, they are inter-connected and overlapping, like the eight petals in Dr. Jenny’s logo;. As you might imagine, this also means every patient needs a personalized, unique treatment plan.

At the first visit, our providers strive to get to know the patient and understand as much as they can about how he/she got to this point in life. In collaboration with Dr. Jenny and her team, the patient will begin setting goals, which can be either weight loss or other health-related goals and are broken down into short-term (daily-weekly), intermediate (monthly), and long-term (yearly/annually). We typically recommend a beginning weight-loss goal of 5-10% of your starting weight, which typically occurs within the first 3 months.

We believe in planting the seed for what it takes to sustain meaningful weight loss long-term starting on day 1. This is so important because weight loss maintenance is challenging, some say even more so than active weight loss, especially if the patient doesn’t have proper guidance and support.

Patients need to understand the importance of continuing the changes they have made lifelong if they want their results to stick. Everyone will hit some bumps in the road and Dr. Jenny will be there to help navigate the road ahead.

Phase 1

Getting Started

Duration: first 6-12 weeks

Initial dietitian visit (usually within 2 weeks after 1st visit)
Follow-up visit with provider to go over labs and check in on what’s working/what’s not
Additional follow-up visits with provider and/or dietitian every 2-4 weeks, based on patient preference and need
If patient is on track, visits will continue every 4 weeks; once everything is running smoothly, these visits can be spaced out to every 6-8 weeks depending on the patient
Focus for first 4-12 weeks is all about optimizing nutrition – getting the patient into a realistic and consistent eating pattern

Phase 2

Phase 2 continues while the patient is actively losing weight and reversing disease. That means “as long as it takes”—weight gain didn’t happen overnight, so we don’t want to be in a hurry or worry about a timeline for weight loss as long as we are making progress.

ACTIVE WEIGHT LOSS

Duration: as long as it takes

Evaluation and adjustment of medications, including weight loss meds, but also DEPRESCRIBING (YES! We get to take people OFF of meds!)
Follow-up labs as needed
Other follow-up testing as needed (sleep study, cardiac tests, etc.)
Ensuring patient is making progress in ALL of the 8 ELEMENTS

Follow-up visit with provider every 4 weeks
Continue working with the dietitian as needed-goal is to find an affordable, accessible, sustainable approach to eating
Optimization of nutritional approach, supplements, medications, begin to focus more on managing the mind and getting more physical activity
If patient is on track, visits will then be spaced out to every 6-8 weeks, while actively losing weight

Phase 3

Visits can be done either in office or virtually; however, we will need to monitor body composition and vital signs as often as every 8 weeks. If a patient lives outside of a reasonable travel radius, we can work to coordinate with the patient’s PCP/local clinic.

Maintenance (& Living Well!)

Duration: months, years, a lifetime …

“Maintenance” doesn’t mean doing nothing! Self-monitoring, healthy habits, autocorrect skills, and safety zones are key
“Keeping it off” can be challenging- we partner with the patient to determine a “safety zone” where he/she feels well emotionally/physically — patient experiences persistent decline in energy, increase in weight, need to move up a clothing size…it’s time to reconnect, sooner rather than later
We instill skills for patients to autocorrect without increasing the frequency or intensity of intervention, but if after 2-4 weeks (not 3-6 months!), the patient isn’t able to reset, they reach out to us to get back on track

Optional Phase

PHASE 4 (OPTIONAL)

Surgery

For patients who are unable to achieve their weight loss/health goals non-surgically.

For patients who have pressing medical reasons to achieve more significant weight loss in a shorter time frame, such as the need for a joint replacement or organ transplant.

Thankfully, there is a tremendous amount of robust scientific data showing that bariatric surgery performed at a center of excellence by an experienced surgeon can be a safe and effective approach to weight loss. If surgery is indicated, we work closely with the surgeons at BMI of Texas, who can provide additional consultation and a variety of surgical options.

Ideally, surgery should never done in isolation. Patients will still need to follow a prescribed nutritional approach and adopt healthier lifestyle changes in order to see lasting, long-term success. Dr. Jenny is the supervising physician for the Comprehensive Medical Surgical Program, so if you do decide to move forward with surgery, you will have a head start by starting your journey with us. Our robust post-operative approach is one of the first of its kind in the world and has proven to lead to an estimated additional 15% weight loss compared to standard surgical programs. The prevalence of weight regain, which is not uncommon with bariatric surgery, is greatly decreased in patients who actively engage with ongoing post-operative care.

Low Carb Nutritional Approach: Get the Junk out of the Diet

UNDERSTANDING LOW-CARB EATING

So, it is true that if patients are insulin sensitive, and have NO signs of insulin resistance, he/she may not need to reduce dietary carbohydrates as much as the rest of us, in order to lose weight. The fact is that about 80 % of US adults have insulin resistance and many have no idea.

We recognize it is impossible to ALWAYS make the best choices, but if you strive to be MORE consistent with putting goodness in your body whenever you can, while leveraging protein, you’ll optimize weight loss, diminish unhealthy internal fat that you can’t see (called “visceral fat”), and begin experiencing a life with less disease and inflammation.

Working with our professional dietitians, you’ll learn to look for and enjoy foods in their more natural state, with less processing, fewer added sugars, and less refined ingredients and chemicals—while still allowing yourself the opportunity for “exception” foods and meals on occasion.

Our approach is not about a “diet” but about learning more about how foods affect your body and learning to incorporate more of the beneficial foods, while limiting those of low to no nutritional value.

We believe in optimizing satiety (sense of fullness/satisfaction) while achieving a more steady state of normal blood sugars and insulin levels.