Our comprehensive weight loss plan is an intense 3 month program that has four components:
1) Regular meetings with a Medical Bariatric Physician (Dr. Finegold). The Physician component also includes your metabolism testing.

2) A Health Club membership with weekly personal training sessions (Patients are expected to exercise at least 3 times weekly during the program at the facility)

3) regular meetings with a Registered Dietician, and
4) Monthly group behavioral modification meetings, conducted by a Clinical Psychologist experienced in weight loss.

We believe that either program can help you become successful, and have many years of experience with patients to back up that claim. The testimonials on our video are a mix of patients from both programs.

The Comprehensive Program is what we consider the “dream program” because it attacks the problem from every aspect. You get the benefit of Physicians trained in weight loss, measuring your metabolism and helping you pin point why you haven’t been successful previously. If you wish, and if you meet the criteria, you can benefit from medications that can be prescribed to help you safely lose weight.

You get the benefit of a Registered Dietitian reviewing your meal plans and teaching you about nutrition, helping you learn what you are doing wrong and educating you in ways to stay successful once the program is over. When people finish this program they know more about nutrition than 99% of the rest of the population.

In our group behavioral therapy sessions, we have licensed Psychologists implement a behavior program to help you stop, once and for all, the habits that cause you to keep regaining weight. We work on Stress eating, eating rates, meal planning and shopping, how to handle restaurants and eating while traveling, how to deal with family members that may be intentionally or unintentionally sabotaging your efforts, and how to make time for yourself in your busy schedule to do what you have to do--for you.

We have had many people tell us that they thought they were not going to get any thing out of the exercise part of the program, only to tell us at completion that they learned things that helped them kick down the doors that were barring them from success in the past.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we provide a structured exercise program.

Most people who have weight issues are intimidated by the thought of exercising. They are afraid they might get hurt, that they will look silly in a health club and not know what to do. They think the exercise will be unpleasant and aren’t motivated or disciplined enough to do it themselves.

We provide friendly environments to exercise in, with staffs that are helpful and respectful, and who make it fun to exercise. More than 60% of the people at our Gottlieb location have joined the health club once the program has officially ended and exercise and lose weight there. This is doubly remarkable when you consider that these people did not like to exercise before.

At our Oak Park location we are partnering with the Gottlieb Health and Fitness Center. This facility is based at a Hospital and has many wellness programs. The exercise atmosphere is friendly and while the club has state of the art facilities, the people you find there are “real people”--many seniors, cardiac rehabilitation patients, and many employees of the hospital as well as members of the community. Our patients don’t feel intimidated and consistently praise the staff for their making them feel welcome. Doctor Finegold is a Primary Care Attending Physicians at the hospital next door and are very well known in the community.

In short, our comprehensive, exercise programs, attack the problem from every angle. The average patient has lost 30 pounds during the 3 month period (many quite a bit more). More importantly, most of them continue what they have learned and and continue to lose weight after the program has officially ended, several of them in excess of 100 pounds. We believe that they have learned their lessons for life and have gotten off the loss/regain merry- go- round.

Metabolism Measuring

Have you been frustrated in the past losing weight?

You exercise, follow a certain number of calories or points, and nothing happens? Perhaps you need to have your metabolism checked.

It's quite easy to do, as long as someone has the machinery, and we do. We need oxygen to burn calories; with our indirect calorimeter, we measure the total amount of oxygen you consume in 10 minutes, and this then translates into how many calories you need at rest to stay steady state over 24 hours. In other words, we are measuring your metabolism.
You can then use this information to help guide your weight loss.

For example, about 8 months ago I saw a woman that was very frustrated because she hadn't lost anything.

She had seen a Nutritionist and was told to follow a 1500 calorie diet, and she brought me 4 weeks of food diaries showing that she had followed instructions, but had only lost 1 pound during that time.

According to the standard equations, her resting metabolic rate should have been 1600 calories/day.
Since she was also actively exercising, she should have been using well over 2000 calories a day and the nutritionists recommendation was sound.

However, when we measured her metabolism, it tuned out her resting metabolic rate was slower than predicted--almost 1000 calories/day... She therefore needed to be taking in much less calories than the 1600 recommendation.

After lowering her calories, and instructing her in ways to safely increase her metabolism, she has lost 18 pounds and is well on her way to her goal.