4. Answer questions mindfully. Don’t just agree because it is asked; physicians purposely throw in red herrings to gather information. “Does it hurt behind your eyeballs when you urinate?” a Harvard physician earnestly asks in such situations. If “yes,” patient reports were usually considered suspect and “unreliable historian” was documented in chart. Be as clear and thoughtful as possible about your answers.

5. “What is plan?” Healthcare providers are trained to think ahead. A backup plan should exist for addressing problem; it may be a follow-up visit with a more aggressive treatment (if first approach doesn’t work) or, a referral to a specialist. Simply put, expect a plan: if it doesn’t exist, you are not getting good care.

That’s a little inside scoop on how to have a successful visit to your healthcare provider.

Metabolism

Metabolism is defined as rate at which your body processes food. In other words, how fast your body burns calories. The faster your metabolism, more food you can eat without gaining weight. How do you control your metabolism? By eating a nutrient-dense meal every 3 to 3 ½ hours. This practice “stokes your internal furnace”, for lack of a better analogy. Think of your body as an old-style locomotive that had coal shoveled into combustion chamber one shovel at a time. If you didn’t shovel in coal fast enough, locomotive would slow down, and your body is no different. If you don’t eat often enough, your metabolism slows down and you don’t burn through calories very quickly. In addition, not only does your rate of calorie consumption go down, but your body starts storing almost everything that you do eat as bodyfat! So, in essence, every time you starve yourself in your honest effort to “stick to your diet”, you are actually slowing down your metabolism as well as making your body more efficient at building padding for you to sit on at baseball games.

Muscle

“I don’t care” you say. You believe that in order to lose weight you need to starve. Okay, that’s wrong, but I’ll explain why that thinking is flawed. Your body needs energy so you can live through any given day. The amount of energy that you need is determined by your Basal Metabolic Rate, and by your activity level for that day. For most people, this amounts to between 1,500 and 2,500 calories per day. Well, if your calorie-restricted diet doesn’t allow you that many calories, your body will find a way to survive anyway. It does this by breaking down your muscle tissue and using it for energy. “So what?” you say. You don’t care, as long as scale says you are losing weight, right?

What if I told you that ONLY place on your body that you can burn bodyfat for fuel is your muscles? What if I told you that more muscle tissue you lose on a calorie-restricted diet, fewer calories you can eat after muscle loss? What if I told you that after losing 20 lbs on a calorie-restricted diet, your total bodyfat level will have dropped very little, if at all? What if I told you that by using muscle mass for energy, you have literally crippled your body’s ability to burn bodyfat in future, and that by laws of Nature (which we can’t change, by way), you will absolutely put weight back on, and probably gain more weight than you ever had before?

If I told you all of that, would you still want to burn muscle tissue for energy while starving yourself to stick to your diet, paying $8 a bag for Carbo Chips, and $20 a session for Aromatic Air Baubles?

On other hand, perhaps laws of Nature don’t apply to you. In that case, be sure to tune in tonight – I believe “Lose Weight While You Eat Butter Fried Bacon” diet is going to be featured on a new infomercial. It is, after all, The Last Diet You Will Ever Need!