I have a brother who is extremely large. He has no drive to lose weight. He has medical problems because of his weight. Hopeful, you raise an issue that is central to success in weight management. That issue is readiness to lose weight.
Many studies show that to be successful, the individual needs to be ready to lose weight.
If the individual doesn t appear to be ready, attempting intervention at this time would most likely not be successful. With someone like this, one should focus on trying to move him towards being ready, which often involves discussing the pluses and minuses of being overweight, pointing out individuals who have been overweight and have been successful in losing weight, and discussing how their lives may have improved due to their successful weight loss. In our program at The Miriam Hospital, we attempt to minimize those risks by performing a medical evaluation on all patients and providing ongoing medical intervention throughout the program. Depending on the specific situation of a given patient, we also need to follow laboratory studies and assess for certain symptoms as patients progress through the program. When this is done by a physician who is trained in this area, the use of liquid supplementation has been shown to be very safe, with minimal risk.