Worthing Medical Group - Weight Loss and Healthy Living

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Healthy Living and Preventative Medicine

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" goes the old saying and although we would now

recommend at least 5 portions a day of varied fruit and vegetables as part of your diet, the

traditions of preventative medicine and healthy living are more relevant to our modern lifestyles

than ever. Most people don't do enough exercise, weigh too much and eat too much processed

foods and don't manage "5 a day".

We can help you make changes in your lifestyle and offer advice about ways in which you can

improve your health as a way of preventing problems developing rather than treating diseases when

they occur. We recommend you try to do some form of exercise that makes you slightly short of

breath for 20-30 minutes, 5 times per week. This can be brisk walking, swimming, cycling, running or

even vigorous housework!

We offer a healthcheck service with members of our nursing team for patients over 40 and check

your for diabetes and your cholesterol levels. Our stop smoking clinic will support you with

psychological and prescribed therapes for 3 months whilst you make a a quit attempt - this gives

you the best possible chances of success.

Weight Loss

Obesity is increasing to epidemic proportions and

we recognise that it is much easier to put on

weight than to lose it. There are lots of options

for weight loss and a wide variety of commercial

and other services to help you lose weight.

In essence all strategies relies on two things:

- reducing energy intake and / or

- increasing energy expended by activity.

Most commercial providers offer their own, unique

perspective on this and we would recommend you

use whatever approach suits you.

You can download a free 12 week weight loss plan

written by specialist NHS dieticians and there are

many other online resources and apps some free

and some paid for. Many supermarkets offer diet

plans as well.

The NHS has partnered with West Sussex Council

to promote a series of classes called "Why

Weight" and we would recommend you contact

them if you are interested. We would recommend

you make an appointment with your usual GP if

you need further assistance or advice after

attempting these options.

Some commercial providers (e.g. LighterLife) have

strict medical requirements to be able to use their

system. We can support you with the medical

certificates for this, but because this is not an

NHS service there is a fee for this.

Tel: 01903 234844 Prescription Requests: 01903 282803

Fax: 01903 231734

23 Shelley Road, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 4BS (map)

worthingmedicalgroup@nhs.net

Feedback

We value your feedback about what we are doing well and what

we could do better. Please tell any member of the team, send us

an email or review us on NHS Choices - we listen carefully and

reflect on all comments.

Healthy Living:

WCRF Healthy Living Tools

NHS Choices

Healthy Eating:

Change for Life Recipe Mixer

NHS Choices 12 Week Weight

Weight Loss:

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Weight Loss Basics

Reducing Energy Intake:

1. Food Diary: Write down everything that

you eat or drink over a one week period.

Don't forget drinks and snacks.

Work out how much you are eating and

drinking and how much you should be

consuming if you want to lose weight: how

different are they?

2. Make Changes: now you know how

much is going in and what the calorie value

of foods are - what changes can you make?

What foods could you cut out?

Don't go mad - aim for a sensible cut in your

food intake. Research shows time and time

again that crash dieting doesn't result in

sustained weight loss but long-term

changes to eating habits does.

Use More Energy:

1. Activity Diary: You might feel that after

a day at work or looking after the children

you are tired and have worked hard - but

how many calories have you burned?

Either buy a step counter (available from

many pound shops) or if you have a

smartphone there are a wide range of apps

that can track activity or movement.

2. Make Changes: If you are already short

of time in your day trying to allocate an

hour for more exercise isn't easy. Ideally

you should aim for 20-30 minutes of

exercise that raises your heart rate and

makes you slightly out of breath 5 days per

week.

Try mixing exercise into your daily routine

instead. Could you walk or cycle to work?

Or get off a bus or park further away so

that you can walk part of the way?

If you have a step counter aim initially for

10000 steps per day but try to push

yourself to 12500 steps per day.