Obesity – Treatment Overview

Treatment for obesity will be most successful if you create a long-term plan with your doctor. A reasonable goal might be to begin making lifestyle changes by increasing physical activity and limiting calories.

Your initial goal should be to improve your health, not to achieve an ideal weight. Although the “formula” for weight loss-to burn more calories than you take in-is not complicated, it is often hard to achieve and maintain. Along with lifestyle changes, medicines and surgery may be options for some people. The treatment you need depends on your level of obesity, your overall health, and your motivation to lose weight.

Health guidelines suggest that people should make lifestyle changes for at least 6 months before trying medicines or surgery. Your doctor may suggest medicines and surgery earlier if you also have conditions such as coronary artery disease or type 2 diabetes.1

Medicines for obesity work in different ways. Depending on the medicine, they make you feel full sooner, limit your body’s ability to absorb fat, or control binge eating. Surgery is used to reduce the size of the stomach and limit how many calories are absorbed by the intestines.

Your doctor may also suggest counseling. If you use food to cope with depression, loneliness, anxiety, or boredom, you need to learn new skills to deal with those feelings.

Initial treatment Before you begin treatment, decide if you are ready to make the lifestyle changes needed to lose weight. Losing weight and maintaining weight loss can be hard. And it may be hard to find the motivation if you have lost and regained weight several times. Think about successes that you had before and how you were able to achieve them.