There are lots and lots of theories on how to lose weight and claims on the best way to do this. Here we try to provide advice on what is available locally to help you and what you can do for yourself too!
1.What condition do you suffer with?
How obese you are is currently determined by your Body Mass Index. You may find this in your medical record or you can calculate it based on your height and weight. Adults with a BMI of 25-29.9 are classed as overweight. BMI over 30 are obese. BMI over 35 are very obese and BMI over 40 are morbidly obese.
You can calculate your BMI here
2.What does that condition mean?
Here are some useful links for further information on obesity and what can be done about it
Click
here to see what we should be eating or on the picture above
Click
here to see a larger version of the picture below which shows how obesity services locally have been set up.
3.What help is available for you to use?
Your doctor or nurse can help you to devise a personalised plan that can help you
You can get 1:1 training and support to lose weight via
Be Well Tameside. This is how you can also access further care potentially leading to weight losing surgery as well.
4.What does obesity mean for you?
Many patients do not realise they are overweight or obese because so many people suffer with it without realising it. You need to know your Body Mass Index and Waist Circumference. Often obesity can be associated with other complications including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, depression, stroke, abnormal liver tests, gall bladder disease, sleep apnoea, certain certain cancers and hypertension. Many of these things can be reversed or their impact reduced by reducing your weight. Assuming there is no specific underlying medical cause, your weight is ultimately dependent on the types and quantity of food you eat and the amount of exercise you do.
5.What needs to happen now and in the future?
It is important to monitor your weight. Agree goals with your doctor or nurse which have SMART objectives (Specifiic, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). That way you can see how well your strategies are working and whether they need to be reviewed or not. If you are over 40 then you should have an NHS Health Check done every 5 years. That will give you a baseline to start from. Then see if you can make small changes in your lifestyle that you are able to adopt. Your doctor or nurse will be able to inform you about what else you need to do over the coming year if you have other related conditions that also need to be managed.
6.What can you do to help?
- Agree a care plan with your doctor or nurse which includes regular monitoring of your weight
- Agree small changes in your weight that you hope to achieve over the next few weeks and how you hope to achieve them.
- Agree changes in your diet and exercise that you hope to achieve. Making small changes rather than wholesale change is more likely to succeed in the long run.
- Make a note of your weight so that you can see what is happening over time.
- Make notes on what is helping you and also what is hindering you. These are personal to you but which will provide insights now and in the future on how to make the necessary changes for you to succeed.
- Do not be disappointed if you do not get the expected reduction in weight as you hoped for,
- See if you can get your family and friends to join you. They will help to motivate you too and we all need a little help (even if you are the one motivating them too!)
- Have a lot of fun and be happy. Imagine how much your weight would be if you did not do what you are doing now!
The Quality Outcomes Framework was set up so that practices can look at how successful they are in delivering services to their practice population and also give an opportunity to see how we compare with others around the country. This data is readily available from here (www.qof.ic.nhs.uk/search.asp). Overall we got all 559 points this year indicating that we are a very high performing practice across the board which is reassuring for you and us. Whilst obesity is no longer a measure used to compare us with other practices, we continue to encourage patients with obesity to get access to their records and gain a better understanding and support them to lose weight.
8.How can you help us do even better and help other patients too?
This is very important. In your journey of discovery about your health, you may come across odd things that do not make sense about the way the practice runs and you may have a better suggestion. Or you may come across something new that we have not considered that helps you even more. Tell us about it next time you see a clinician or preferably write it down and hand it in or send it as a comment to the Patient Participation Group (PPG) so that they can bring it up with the practice the next time we meet up. Even better, why don’t you join the PPG and become an active member. We are always on the look out for new members and new ideas.
.jpg)
