Whose driving?”  That’s what my mom always wanted to know before I went out with my friends after school.  I didn’t understand it then, but the answer was important.  What does this have to do with losing weight and controlling lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease… well, a lot really.

In my mind, a few human beings were getting into a car and traveling from point A to point B.  It happens a million times a day so why was it such a big deal when I was involved? 

If you’d just lose 20 pounds you probably wouldn’t even need these medications.”  Those words echo in my mind as I think back to a time when I bought into the idea that everyone who was overweight was lazy and gluttonous.  Just eat a little less, exercise a little more. “Voila!”  The weight would just fall off.  Well, if you’ve ever been overweight, you know how absolutely ignorant that kind of thinking really is.

I’ve been in practice for over 12 years and I’ve spent a majority of that time in the operating room as a neurophysiologist.  Time and time again I saw patients turned away from a procedure they desperately needed because of their weight.