Three Respected Doctors, Three Smart Approaches To Fat Loss

This is the time of year that fat is on the brain. Even FX's "Louie" brought it up last week, with star Louis C.K. out on a date with "Vanessa," whose "fat girl" rant struck many chords and sparked a national debate about fat. The fashion industry, beauty magazines, mens' fitness magazines and the simple truth that we are sicker and fatter than ever has many people silently walking around cursing their weight, wishing for it to just go away.

It takes a dedicated lifelong game plan to make this happen.

Many doctors are good at avoiding risky behavior like smoking, but some physicians are reported as having some weight problems, high blood pressure and blood sugar issues just like the rest of us.

Meet three fit and health conscious over - 40 doctors who are helping people with weight: A board certified neurosurgeon, a chiropractor (who is a successful homeopathic entrepreneur) and a board certified plastic surgeon. These three unlikely disciplines have turned out three dedicated doctors who have thriving practices, thanks in great part to their unwavering walking of their talk. All three men are exemplary in promoting well patient practices and keeping their patients out of the operating rooms and thriving.

Two of the doctors, Dr. Brett Osborn, and Dr. Frank King, have written books outlining their prescriptions for weight management, "Get Serious" and "The Healing Revolution" respectively.

Dr. Grant Stevens is expanding his non-invasive non-surgical methods for fat loss with Zeltiq's CoolSculpting, an FDA approved procedure that requires an hour or two of your time per session. This procedure is growing in popularity for men and women who are looking to lose specific areas of fat resistant to gym workouts. CoolSculpting procedure doesn't burn, shatter or extract any cells, the cooling process kills the fat cells underneath the skin, literally freezing them to the point of elimination. Only fat cells are frozen. Your healthy skin cells remain, well, healthy. No knives. No suction hoses. No needles. No scars. Once crystallized, the fat cells die and are naturally eliminated from your body. In a few months, you are inches smaller. It's a safe way to augment dieting and exercising.

Board-Certified Neurosurgeon with a secondary certification in Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Brett Osborn is a classic Type A personality, physically fit and recommends building muscle as best protection against 'the Disease of Aging.' His book "Get Serious" is recommended for anyone to grasp the basics of body chemistry, specifically what happens when you eat certain foods, and what taxes your organs and causes a cascading effect of interrelated negative symptoms that are all reversible and preventible according to Dr. Osborn. But you will have to work, and work hard.

Dr. Osborn reiterates that if you want good health, a long life and to feel your best well into old age, the No. 1 most important thing you can do is strength-training.

in time, your excess fat literally becomes an endocrine organ, releasing hormones and other chemicals that wreak havoc on you. When a person has excess fat, he or she also a disrupted flow of excess biochemicals, which can increase insulin resistance and boost risk factors for stroke and high blood pressure, among other problems. Experiencing thyroid failure when you are peri-menopausal? You might want to read this book.

"Increased cytokines, an immune system chemical, for example, are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease," Dr. Osborn says. "You're only as old as your arteries!"

He writes,

"The diseases that kill the majority of people worldwide are, to a great degree, preventable! Take coronary artery and cerebrovascular disease for example. Both are the products of poor nutrition (and resultant obesity) and lack of exercise, or in other words, outright laziness. Factors which you can control! I misspoke: these are factors which you must control. To achieve health, you must assume responsibility for your well-being. By making the right choices. I will show you how. Just follow my lead. Read and re-read…"

And for the panacea, weight training which builds muscle… "Muscle is all protein…nothing but good for you," Dr. Osborn says.

"It should be plainly obvious to anyone reading Get Serious that I am a staunch advocate of the back squat. It is the basic movement around which all strength training regimens should be developed. Its anabolic effects are rivaled only by the deadlift. The squat stresses not only the lower body but also the upper body. The abdominal as well as the lumbar musculature are taxed as they serve to support the torso during both the ascent and descent. Yes, squats strengthen your back, not weaken it as you may have been told (erroneously). But this is provided you squat with proper form.

As you will come to see in future posts, I am a stickler for safety, the basis of which is proper form. Squats in particular can be technically challenging and by virtue, predispose one to injury if performed without strict attention to detail. So study the movement prior to attempting a squat. Seek out an experienced trainer who can fine tune your execution. And keep in mind that the squat is a relatively natural movement if you don't fight it. You are simply sitting on an invisible chair with a loaded bar on your shoulders and then standing up. And the mechanics follow suit."

Strength-training has health benefits for everyone, he adds, no matter their size…

"Some fat is visceral fat – it's stored around the organs and it's even more dangerous than the fat you can see," he says. "People who look thin may actually be carrying around a lot of visceral fat."

The secret to leaning out and longevity lies in a 5 days a week- one hour a day (weekends off) varied strength training – a heavy workout, focused and to the point. Osborn's book is a valuable tutorial that can be used to customize a workout right for you. Dr. Osborn also is a strong proponent of a protein heavy diet with strong sugar avoidance and outlines the good supplements and things over 40 people need to take, especially vitamin D.

"Back to basics," Dr. Osborn says. "These five exercises are the pillars of a solid training regime."

• The squat is a full-body exercise; it's the basic movement around which all training should be centered. Heavy squats generate a robust hormonal response as numerous muscular structures are traumatized during the movement (even your biceps). Standing erect with a heavy load on your back and then repeatedly squatting down will stress your body inordinately – in a good wa — forcing it to grow more muscle.
• The overhead press primarily activates the shoulders, arm extenders and chest. Lower body musculature is also activated as it counters the downward force of the dumbbell supported by the trainee. From the planted feet into the hands, force is transmitted through the skeletal system, stabilized by numerous muscular structures, most importantly the lower back.
• The deadlift centers on the hamstrings, buttocks, lumbar extensors and quadriceps, essentially the large muscles of your backside and the front of your thighs. As power is transferred from the lower body into the bar through the upper body conduit, upper back muscles are also stressed, contrasting with the squat, which is supported by the hands. Deadlifts are considered by some to be the most complete training exercise.
• The bench press mostly targets the chest, shoulders and triceps; it's the most popular among weightlifters, and it's very simple – trainees push the barbell off the lower chest until the arms are straight. This motion stresses not only the entire upper body, but also the lower body, which serves a stabilizing function. This provides a big hormonal response and plenty of bang for your buck.
• The pull-up / chin-up stress upper body musculature into the body. A pull-up is done when hands gripping over the bar; a chin-up is where hands are gripping under the bar. Nine out of 10 people cannot do this exercise because most simply haven't put in the effort. It's also been called a "man's exercise, which is nonsense," he says. There are no gender-specific exercises. Women, too, should aspire to enjoy the health benefits entailed with this pillar.

Dr. Frank King's book – compared to Dr. Osborn's - is much kinder and less "you can DO it" but with the same spirit of supplying good information. Dr. King is not the extreme physical specimen that Dr. Osborn is, but both men are strong in their beliefs that we are vitamin D starved (this is a big problem that is under reported), and that sugar and Big Pharma are the devil (they are).

What I liked about his book was the whole environment approach to weight loss, that includes good advice about mind control, body maintenance, massage technique, exercise and more. Dr. King is a naturopath, chiropractor and founder of King Bio in Asheville, North Carolina. King Bio, Inc. manufactures natural medicines available across America. His bison ranch, Carolina Bison, provides healthy, natural meat to grocery stores and restaurants.

The Healing Revolution book is a multi-dimensional lifestyle approach, empowering you to make natural, life-giving choices in eight essential areas of everyday life that include food, drink, sleep, relationships, nature, fitness and more. Again, you have to put in effort.

A balance exists between all Eight Essentials. For example, sleep and nutrition impact fitness, and fitness impacts relationships. Your health and happiness are directly related to your attitudes and the choices you make in these Eight Essential areas.

Among many things, Dr. King is a big believer in the power of negative ions (outdoor energy, fresh air) and going barefoot as much as possible, creating a sleep sanctuary, creating and keeping boundaries for personal relationships, whole body massage including the sphincter of Oddi massage, and he has a ton of great stretches (photo and illustrations) and tests for things like adrenal fatigue in his book.

In contrast, Dr. Osborn throws down 300 pounds of weights on a weak day and then goes zooming off on a motorcycle for his stress relief! To each his own. The takeaway is find what is is that gives you that stress break and cultivate and preserve it. There's great information in both books.

The Eight Essentials according to Dr. King are:

1. The Human Spirit
2. Nutrition
3. Water
4. Fitness
5. Sleep
6. Nature
7. Relationships
8. Hands On Techniques

Dr. Stevens has been in practice for 27 years.

So you do everything right, drink green juices, avoid sugar and manage stress, get good sleep, do your gym time and work anaerobic (weights) and aerobic and always chew your food at least 40 times before you swallow, but you can't eradicate that roll around your waist, or inner thighs, or you have a saddlebag from hell or love handles that love you so much they refuse to relocate? Your weight is in a normal ranges, maybe not ideal, but you are not obese. Just fluffy in the wrong spot.

There's no need to get liposuction.

Dr. Grant Stevens is one of LA's top board certified plastic surgeons. Dr. Stevens and his group in Marina Del Rey, CA. and Marina Medspa are the top non-surgical body sculpting procedure hubs, performing more coolsculpting and non invasive cosmetic procedures than anyone else in the world.

Dr. Grant Stevens tells Monsters and Critics, "CoolSculpting is designed for those who are putting in the work and getting nowhere in certain areas. It is not for weight loss nor is it for all over fat loss." This is an FDA approved safe way to permanently eliminate your fat by freezing it. Marina Plastic Surgery is one of only a handful of places performing the technique in California.

Harvard scientists developed the completely safe technique that targets fat cells underneath the skin, freezing them to the point of elimination- all while leaving the healthy cells undamaged.

Speaking from experience, the coolsculpting device acts like a large vacuum, sucking up your fat (the area is prepped with a gel pack to protect your skin underneath). The first 5 minutes you sort of have your breath taken away a bit but then it all settles down and you don't feel anything other than the machine is attached to you.

Be prepared to bring a book or your tablet to while away the time. When the procedure is done, a device that looks like a white baton with strong pulsation is pressed on the frozen area to disperse the dead frozen cells and speed up the turnover so you shed them quicker. The treatment takes 1 hour per area, and then over the course of 2 -3 months, the fat gradually disappears- up to 20% of it.

In the meantime, depending on how long your treatment was, you may be tender in the area, but nothing an Advil won't take care of. I found it interesting that there's an internal itching at times – not often – but you want to scratch the area that was frozen, but it's itchy inside so there is no relief unless you press hard on the area. That's the dead fat cells going by the wayside, so I welcomed that feeling. I am still relatively early in on this procedure. I have seen some noticeable changes in my mid-section. Dr. Stevens says that the best patients are those who are relatively fit but just have little areas of fat that they can't get rid of with diet and exercise. He says it is common for patients to lose inches or pants/dress sizes.

In the meantime I am doing weekday strength training reps and upping my vitamin D (thanks Dr. Osborn), drinking more water, checking my emotions and stretching more (thanks Dr. King) and not spilling out of my jeans (thank you Dr. Stevens)

19th May 2014 By April Neale From Monsters & Critics