When a person goes into the doctor’s office for a general checkup LOTS of body “stuff” will be checked including:
- Blood pressure
- Pulse
- Laboratory blood tests including glucose levels, liver enzymes, renal function
- Weight
Most people that do incorporate routine doctor office-based checkups will do this once a year but some will go only every several years depending on their underlying health status.
For those people with hypertension and/or diabetes, self-monitoring is often performed. Home blood pressure cuffs and glucose monitoring devices are commonplace and not very expensive. At our practice, we most definitely encourage our patients to self-monitor whatever they are able to do. Seeing the doctor 1-2 times a year is not optimal to ensure these underlying conditions are under good control.
Focusing on weight: When people are in the active stages of our weight loss program, we are bringing our patients in (or having them self-report via telemedicine) their weights daily. We also encourage people to come in for their free body scans monthly after their programs finish.
It is VERY important to self-monitor your weight. Getting on the scale several times a day or even daily will drive most people crazy but my belief is that a once-a-week weight check AND recording that weight is a great way of self-monitoring. In any given week, the weight will either go up a little, go down a little or stay the same. When/if you see the weight go up that week, hop on that immediately by going back on Modified Phase 1 for a week and ditch the booze that next week. By “reading and reacting” weekly, this will stop the “Oh, s—t, I gained 20 pounds” from ever happening again.
If you have high blood pressure, self-monitor the blood pressure reading. If you have diabetes, self-monitor the blood glucose. And, if you are overweight/obese, self-monitor your weight.
YOUR health is important…YOU have songs you want to keep singing….Here is Sir Elton John singing Your Song.
