by Dave Fouts

Dave Fouts is the corporate chef for Western Bariatric Institute (www.westernbariatricinstitute.com) and Imetobolic. You can visit www.chefdave.org for free recipes, grocery shopping planning lists, weekly meal planners, and more.

Introduction

“Eating out saves time and works well within my schedule.” I challenge this statement all the time; however, there are pros and cons to eating out. If a patient thinks that driving to the restaurant, waiting to order, waiting for your food to be served, then waiting to pay saves you time, not to mention the drive back, I’m not convinced. Aside from the time factor, when dining out, most restaurants are not taking the needs of your patients into consideration. Most foods are high in calories and portion sizes can be overwhelming. I’m not totally certain that all restaurants who claim to have light or low calorie dishes are being truthful. This can cause your patients to hit plateaus and even gain weight. However, the pro to eating out is that it can be a time saver if you have a place that has quick, healthy, already prepared foods, such as a Whole Foods Market or a Boston Market. These foods are made to meet the needs of the health conscious and are normally prepared in a way that gets the customer in and out in less than five minutes. The key is keeping one’s hands out of the food until he or she gets home. Also, the food that is already prepared costs less than going to a restaurant in most cases, but is still priced high for the convenience.

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by James N. Lau, MD, FACS; and Myriam J. Curet, MD, FACS Both are with Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University

INTRODUCTION

Obesity is a well recognized public health epidemic affecting not only the United States, but the world. “This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world,” Australia’s Monash University professor Paul Zimmet, Chair of the 10th International Congress on Obesity, said on the opening day of the conference. Mounting evidence now rates obesity, with its multiple comorbid diseases, as the second most preventable cause of death next to smoking in the US.

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