Have Your Cake

In the early days of my practice, I had a patient come to see me who needed to lose weight. More specifically, her doctor wanted her blood pressure to come down.

Before we began, Leila, 42 year-old mum of three, laid out her terms.

She had no intention of eating less. She wasn't going to exercise. And she certainly wasn't giving up fried food.

Then she looked at me and said, 'Work your magic!'

Not exactly the textbook starting point for a weight-loss programme, but I did think it rather wonderful how much faith she had in me.

Did I rise to the challenge? Of course!

For me, whether someone comes in with weight to lose, a long-standing condition, or a whole host of symptoms they can't figure out, it's always about the person — not the perfect programme. There are many ways up the mountain, and life is far too short to struggle.

Most of the time, if I ask a patient to do something, I will have tried it myself. I reason that if I find something impossible to sustain, why should I expect my patients to fare any better?

My job was to make this as easy as possible for Leila.

The changes were slow to begin with. Interestingly, some of Leila's fat, which had initially felt remarkably firm, began to soften before her measurements changed more obviously. I guess you could say that things began to shift before the scales reflected it.

So how did we do it? Together, we worked around her dealbreakers.

Because Leila wasn't going to eat less, we changed what filled her plate: good-quality protein and plenty of fibrous vegetables. Because Leila insisted on no exercise, I gave her a 10-minute conditioning movement to prime her body for weight loss. And since fried food was staying, we worked on incorporating it into the carb portion of her meal. I also added a handful of supplements.

The point wasn't to create the perfect weight-loss programme. It was to create one Leila could actually follow: repeat the right habits, and the results pretty much take care of themselves. The key is consistency – and to never, ever, ever, ever feel like your life is one long diet.

Within the first two weeks, Leila's blood pressure fell from 150/90 to 115/78. The weight took a little longer. Twelve weeks on, she had lost 6 kg — without eating less, without joining a gym, or saying goodbye to her fried food.

People often think that change has to begin with willpower. In my experience, it's less about doing the right thing than doing the right thing for you. This is something Leila nailed. And once the wheels are in motion, the body usually takes over and does the rest.