Bel-Air | Thônex
At BioMed MTC, we offer personalized support to people who want to lose weight. The goal is to support, coach, and motivate them so they can achieve their goal more easily, more quickly, and in the best possible conditions.
Today we interview Christian, one of our patients who decided to contact BioMed MTC to get help with his weight loss.
After losing nearly 11 kilos thanks to this method, we wanted to talk to him so that he could share his feelings, the difficulties he encountered, his tips and advice for successful weight loss.
What made you decide to start losing weight?
“There are actually three reasons why I decided to lose weight. The first is that I saw myself in a photo, and I said to myself "that's not me". The second reason is that this year I'm going to be 60, and I don't want to enter old age being so careless with my body. And finally the third reason is that I have a job where I have an interest in being "Fit" (thin), that is to say that I am a yoga teacher AND a journalist. And it's true that I hadn't realized that once in a t-shirt, I didn't necessarily give a good image of my discipline, and from a marketing point of view it didn't sell. Also, as a journalist I have to travel all the time, and having a few pounds less makes my daily life much easier. You should know that in my personal case, I generally gain between 1.2kg and 1.5kg per year. It's quite sneaky because we don't realize it."
Why did you contact BioMed MTC to help you with your weight loss?
“I contacted BioMed MTC through word of mouth. Actually, I have a friend who also had weight problems. And one day I went to see her, a Sunday, she was all slim and happy, and I asked her how she managed to achieve such visible results so quickly. And she gave me the phone number of BioMed MTC, which I contacted the very next day. In addition to that, I also consulted your website, and it is a gold mine to learn more about obesity, understand being overweight, how it works, and also how Chinese medicine can help us in our weight loss process.
How did your first session with therapist Lingling SHI go? Did it meet your expectations?
“Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting anything in particular, except that I needed a framework, a program, and a diet adapted to my situation and my goals. I also needed little rituals, to establish new habits, and also motivation. You should know that basically, I am someone who is capable of buying a McDonald's, a bar of chocolate and a packet of cakes and eating them all in 5 minutes. And for me, having new rituals, new distractions, really helped me contain my bulimic impulses and get out of this vicious circle."
Photo credit: Lauren Terrigeol
Had you ever had acupuncture before contacting BioMed MTC?
"Yes, I had done it before, but to be honest, I had never felt a single beneficial effect, a single change in myself through acupuncture. This time, I really saw the difference."
How many kilos have you lost with BioMed MTC support?
“I lost 11 kg!”
Overall, what was easy and/or difficult during this support?
“The hardest thing for me was that I felt at the beginning that I had misexpressed my energy needs. In fact, I cycle for about an hour and a half a day, and in addition, as a yoga teacher, I have to lift and carry people for hours. So it was very hard at first to adapt to your support because I hadn't explained my situation well enough. You should know that I am someone who was very addicted to sugar, and it even sometimes caused cravings.But fortunately there are alternatives (almonds, cashews, olives, etc.) to compensate for and control these urges.”
What surprised you most during this support?
“What surprised me most is that I am one of those people who thinks that if they haven't had a hearty meal before working or doing an activity, they are no longer able to keep up. That is to say, if I forced myself to eat less, I could no longer remember the names of my students during my yoga classes, I could no longer see the back of the room... etc. So when I was teaching from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., I would make a huge plate of pasta at 5:00 a.m. So you could say that what surprised me the most was the fact that I didn't need to eat as much to have the energy necessary to carry out my activities.
Ultimately, resisting sugar wasn't that complicated. I even treated myself to five squares of dark chocolate after each session to remotivate myself.
Finally, after losing 11 kilos, what changes, what improvements have you felt in your daily life from a physical point of view?
"So for me I find that quite impressive, that is to say that I am much more flexible than before. I have also felt an improvement in my joints.
And from an emotional point of view? Have you felt any changes? Any improvements?
“Yes, of course! You know, I'm in a tight t-shirt all day, so it shows. I've had compliments from people around me, from my work colleagues, and it's true that it's good for my ego. I didn't think I'd get so many compliments.” Ultimately, we always have the impression that when we have better control of our body, we also have better control of our life.
Are you stabilizing today? Have you reintroduced foods into your diet?
"Yes, that's it. But I must admit that I manage myself more easily when everything is forbidden. Once we are allowed to reintroduce this or that food, I find it a little harder to control myself. I prefer it, in any case it's easier for me when I'm supervised and coached. Today, I replaced the chocolate bar with dried meat or bananas, and I think it's great. And in addition, the monthly booster sessions acupuncture are there to support me, I am not left to my own devices once the weight loss is achieved"
Do you have any advice and tips for people who would also like to start a weight loss process?
What really helps me today is having diversions in place that keep me away from my bad habits. That is to say, I bought myself a nice jar and a nice little spoon for my Gomasio, I also bought myself a big bowl for my vegetables, etc… And so today, when I want to go to a bakery, I will first eat 2 spoons of Gomasio and 5 olives, and in general the desire to go to the bakery disappears. And the fact of having bought nice utensils to store and eat healthy food motivates me more to consume it.
Second, I would advise being really mindful of the energy you need. to "function", I would never have thought that I would stand up by eating half as much.
Third, I established rituals to reward myself. That is to say, I allow myself a few squares of dark chocolate, quite bitter and not very sweet. And it's true that when I eat them, I feel like I'm saying goodbye to my old life, to my old self who ate very sweet chocolate.
Finally, I followed some recipes which were given to me by the SHI therapist. And I must admit that although I wasn't really convinced at first, today I see the beneficial effects on my body.
Therapist Lingling SHI's point of view:
Our patient Christian is 60 years old, he is a school teacher and yoga instructor.
Initially, he contacted us because he wanted to lose 6 kilos, but thanks to our personalized support and his unwavering motivation, he finally lost 11 kilos!
He was someone who suffered from rather high mental and physical fatigue, particularly due to the two jobs he held. This fatigue created a form of stress and frustration in him, which caused urges that inevitably pushed him towards excessive food consumption.
For us, Christian was an "easy" patient, in the sense that he was already fully aware of his weight problem, and he was very motivated to get out of it and move forward.
We prescribed him 1 session per week in our office, and with each session, he lost between 1 and 2 kilos. It was also at the beginning of his support that his weight loss was the highest, easily 2 kilos per week.
In the end, he lost 11 kilos in just 7 sessions! It's remarkable!
It should also be noted that Christian is a very motivated person. : he says what he does AND he does what he says.
By his third session with us, he was already feeling a marked improvement, less stiff, more mobile, less tired, and less out of breath. This progress further motivated him to continue his weight loss.
According to him, the more structured and clear things were (knowing what he could eat AND what he shouldn't eat), the more focused he was able to be and the easier the weight loss process became.
Today, Christian is in a stabilization phase and together we have managed to establish healthy rituals that will definitely prevent him from falling back into excessive food consumption.
Do you want to lose weight?
Together, let's implement new habits in your daily life to change your life!