Getting A Checkup With A Doctor And Advice On Losing Weight

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I’m not afraid of doctors or dentists. I don’t mind being jabbed with needles (as long as I’m not looking), but I still don’t go to doctors that often. Ok, let’s be really honest – I hadn’t been to a doctor for several years up until very recently.

In some respects that’s probably not a bad thing, in others it’s not such a good thing.

So as part of my big plan to lose weight and change my lifestyle I scheduled an appointment with a local GP this morning. The funny thing is that we ended up spending the first 20 minutes talking about the doctor’s website and email, but it’s kind of hard to avoid my dayjob at the best of times 🙂

There wasn’t anything specifically wrong with me, but I wanted to talk to a health professional about losing weight etc., and also to see what, if any, advice I could get.

We had a nice chat about losing weight and he gave me some good advice that I’ll be trying to apply.

Basics are pretty obvious. If you consume 3000 calories and only burn off 2500 you will put on weight. If you consume 2000 and burn 2500 then you will lose weight. Nothing new there.

What was interesting, however, was that he explained how breakfast actually works ie. how it helps your metabolism to “get working”.

I’ll have to go back again later this week to get some blood tests done to check sugar levels, cholesterol and all those “fun” things, but my blood pressure was very healthy, so at least one thing is right!

Other takeaways …

A diet should involve food that I actually enjoy, so avoiding peanut butter isn’t a bad thing!

Getting exercise would be a good thing, but again it shouldn’t be forced, so walking would be fine. So I guess I won’t be doing the marathon this year!

What was interesting, for me at least, was that the doctor put a very strong emphasis on keeping regular records. While the Tesco Diet I’m currently following is pretty meticulous about recording my calorie intake they only want a weekly “weigh in”, whereas the doctor was very much in favour of doing it every single day. So maybe I could find a use for the WiThings after all, or at least a justification..