Weight issues are just a symptom of the larger neurotransmitter deficiency syndrome.  Therefore, we use very similar supplements to help you lose weight.  However, the full weight loss program is more involved.  Some people choose to participate in the full program.  Others prefer to be educated in weight loss issues, buy the supplements and manage their own process.  The full program is considered more effective.

In order to benefit from this program you need to understand and agree with the following:

• If you are overweight and feel you are eating very little, you are wrong.  You are eating enough to maintain your weight.  If you eat less, you will lose the extra weight.  We can teach and enable you to do it.  Your job is to cooperate, do what we advise and not to argue.  We will answer all your questions, but we don't have time for arguments.

• If you believe your metabolism is different from that of the rest of population, i.e., slower, you are wrong.  Everybody, except very few people with thyroid disease, have the same metabolism.  You are fat because you eat too much.  By decreasing your caloric intake you can lose weight.

• If you want to lose the weight and get off the program, don't start.  Obesity is a chronic disease leading to a multitude of other chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, knee osteoarthritis, heart disease, strokes, some cancers, etc.  By entering our program you are entering a life-long hunger and weight management program.  This does not mean that you will need to see us forever on a regular basis.  Our job is to teach you to control your caloric intake and to enable you to do so by suppressing your hunger with NeuroReplete nutritional supplements.  If you get to your goal weight and get off the supplements cold turkey, you will promptly gain all the weight back.  You will most likely need to continue taking some amount of the supplements for as long as you want to stay slim.  If you prefer not to take anything, it is best you don't even start.  However, consider the fact that if you do develop complications of obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease and others, you will need to take medications lifelong in order to live.  The supplement alternative may be better.  Your choice.

• Exercise is wonderful for you health, but will not lead to weight loss in most people.

• If you feel the above does not apply to you because your body works differently or because you disagree with our theory, you may be right. However, this is the theory we work with and if it does not work for you, we can't help you.  You may want to consider some other weight loss program, working on a different theory.

• If you want to lose weight and still be able to use the same wardrobe, you may want to reconsider

• If you feel that excess weight protects you from something, like male (or female) attention, from vices, from not being noticed, etc, we need to address those issues first.  Homeopathy might be a good way to address those issues.

Here are the components of our weight loss program:

1. Low calorie diet. The patient is required to count calories exactly by weighing and measuring all food. The suggested calorie prescription is usually very low to enable speedy weight loss. The calorie prescription is determined with the aid of a computer program and the patient is given a fairly good estimate of how long it will take them to lose the desired weight if they stick with the prescribed diet. They can choose the rate of weight loss that is comfortable to them. Most people would get very hungry on these low calorie prescriptions and quit the program. This is where the supplements come in.

2. Supplements containing the necessary amino acids (particularly 5HTP and Tyrosine) are taken by all patients. The patients are expected not to feel hunger. If they do, the doses are adjusted to the point where the patients are very comfortable. In most cases this is very possible and the doses are set within a month on the program.
The supplements decrease hunger and food cravings, thereby enabling the user to decrease their caloric intake and lose a significant amount of weight. At first, when I heard of this idea, I was rather skeptical, but I have talked to several doctors using this approach, as well as patients and found it to be real. Patients safely lose a lot of weight. For example, a 300-pound person can expect to lose up to 50 lb. in the first two months on the program, and continue losing weight steadily to a desired weight of 180 lb. or less. Once the goal weight is reached the patient is put in maintenance with the goal of stabilizing their weight. The doses of the supplements are monitored and adjusted throughout the duration of the program. I like to test things on myself before offering them to my patients. I did it with this program as well. My problem is hunger. I can usually eat any time and any amount. It is only through force of will that I had been able to maintain my weight at a reasonable level, but never quite where I wanted it to be. As I started setting up the NeuroReplete® program in my practice I went on it myself. I was amazed at the effectiveness of the control of hunger. I ate 900 cal. a day and did not feel hungry. When I tried to diet in the past I was always ravenously hungry, so this was quite a change.


3. The patient participating in the full program must come to the office regularly. At first it is weekly. Once it becomes clear that weight loss is proceeding as planned without any discomfort to the patient the visits are spaced 2 weeks apart. At each visit the patient gets a computer printout showing them how they are doing compared to the progress predicted by the computer based on the calorie prescription. If you cheat on your calorie count we know it right away and help you figure out the way to get back on track. Once you reach the goal weight we enter you in maintenance program and see you for at least a year monthly. At this point your calorie prescription is adjusted to enable you to maintain your weight. We decrease the doses of your supplements to the levels you will need to continue taking to maintain your hunger on a manageable level.


In summary, we offer a safe and effective method of weight loss without drugs and under continuous supervision of a physician. The weight loss seen in the program is so significant and stable that many patients are able to decrease and stop their diabetic and blood pressure drugs and stay well without them. Many other problems mentioned above also improve at the same time, such as depression, anxiety, migraines, fibromyalgia, etc.
 

What does traditional medicine have to offer patients with weight problems?

First, “diet and exercise”. This is recognized as notoriously ineffective. Sure, you might find the occasional rare patient who can lose some weight, but as a whole it does not work even though many physicians still prescribe it.

Second, Xenical, a prescription fat blocker that costs about $120 a month and the average patient lose 9 pounds the first year. That works out to $160 a pound for the cost of Xenical (not to mention other costs such as office visits) to lose 9 pounds. This is how it works: Xenical blocks absorption of 1/3 of the fat you eat. If you eat a meal with a lot of fat, a significant amount of this fat does not get absorbed and comes out with stool. Whenever any fat comes out with stool it causes uncontrollable oily orange diarrhea. The patient taking the drug soon realizes that if they eat a lot of fat they will get quite uncomfortable, so they instinctively learn to eat less fat. However, since the problem of excessive hunger is not solved they just replace the fat calories with carbohydrate calories and weight loss stops.

Third, Meridia, which the manufacturer recommends to doctors prescribing it to have a goal of losing 10% of body weight. This is not much comfort to a 300-pound person, who, after spending $90 a month for just the medicines, not to mention office visits, ends up at 270 pounds. This drug is a norepinephrine and serotonine reuptake inhibitor.

Fourth, Phentermine, which, when used alone quits working completely after 3 to 4 weeks. Average group weight loss is 9.4 pounds in the first year. This is an amphetamine-like drug, causing stimulant effect not unlike large amounts of coffee. It has some dangerous side effects, just like other drugs, listed below.

Over the counter appetite suppressants, such as Dexatrim and others, are basically decongestants which have a minor and temporary side effect of loss of appetite. They also have stimulant effect, not unlike a large dose of caffeine, and therefore may interfere with your sleep, cause symptoms of anxiety and raise your blood pressure, which makes them very undesirable for any kind of long-term use. Ephedra, or Ma-Huang, a naturally occurring decongestant, is a common ingredient of many so called “natural” weight loss products, but its effect is essentially the same as that of the synthetic products like Dexatrim.  Ephedra has some dangerous side-effects, such as elevation of blood pressure, occasionally causing hypertensive crises leading to strokes.  As the synthetic products are quite similar to Ephedra in their side-effect profile, I feel they should never be used as a weight loss aide.

This is what traditional medicine has to offer. All of these treatments come up short with regards to effectively getting a group of patients to goal weight.

Then there are numerous diets, such as the Atkins diet, blood type diet, carbohydrate addict diet, etc. They often do work, at least temporarily, but most people find them too restrictive and get fed up with them fairly quickly. Needless to say, as soon as you get off the diet, you gain all the weight back in a big hurry, and you are lucky if you stop there.