It's never easy to lose weight!
According to Statistics Canada, only one in three Canadians is within their healthy weight target. Perhaps most worryingly, Canadian children have seen their obesity rates almost triple over the past 25 years, in both boys and girls.
Unfortunately, obesity is now firmly established as a chronic progressive disease. Obesity increases the risk of other chronic health problems, including diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. What's more, obesity increases the risk of osteoarthritis, not only in weight-bearing joints such as the knees, but also in other joints such as those of the hands. This is due to the metabolic, endocrine and inflammatory impact of obesity on the body.
The good news is that many options are available and effective in promoting weight loss. What's more, weight loss doesn't always have to be huge for people to feel the benefits in their bodies, and on their health!
A multimodal treatment
Since obesity is a condition influenced by many factors, including lifestyle, genetic and metabolic factors, the use of several approaches is often preferred to achieve the desired results.
Bariatric surgery has been used for many years to treat people with severe obesity and diseases caused by this excess weight. It is undoubtedly the most drastic therapy, but also one of the most effective for achieving significant weight loss.
Medication, such as Ozempic, which has been in the news all autumn, can also be an interesting option, but remains expensive for the majority of people who do not have insurance to cover its use.
Lifestyle modifications, including eating habits and exercise, are the most accessible, and often least expensive, elements for those wishing to lose weight.
Healthy lifestyle habits
In addition to being the cornerstone of obesity treatment, healthy lifestyle habits also show benefits for cardiovascular, liver, lung, bone and digestive health, and many others. They can help prevent dementia, treat anxiety and depressive symptoms, reduce the risk of cancer, contribute to the treatment of chronic pain, help reduce constipation, among many other benefits!
It's a shame, then, that it's so difficult to adopt and maintain them over the long term! If you'd like to put some new habits into your routine, I suggest this article:
Science says it takes an average of 66 days to develop a new habit - know that an app can help!
While various factors can contribute to lifestyle changes, for the techno-savvy, an app can be a change-maker, or motivator!
How apps can help you lose weight
Different types of app can be useful. The most obvious are those that focus on weight loss from the calorie side, whether through exercise or diet. Apps that support a low-sugar diet, a Mediterranean diet and even good hydration, or those that support a type of intermittent fasting, are among them.
There are also apps that use cognitive-behavioral therapy to change perception and inappropriate eating behaviors; apps to manage anxiety-depressive symptoms if these are at the root of weight gain; other apps to promote sleep, which is a hormonal and metabolic regulator.
Finally, some will offer education, and others follow-up and support, whether medical, psychological or peer support. These, too, have a proven track record in helping people lose weight.
Apps to help you
Let's take a look at some apps that can help if you want to get started on the road to weight loss.
As we said earlier, obesity is a chronic disease, which is not without consequences, and therefore needs to be managed. If you think you may be suffering from obesity or its consequences, consult a healthcare professional first; an app can then support you in your treatment plan.
Noom is a psychologically-based weight-loss app, aimed at establishing good lifestyle habits, with the more global objective of feeling, and being, healthy.
The app's qualities are reinforced by positive clinical acceptability/feasibility studies and numerous peer-reviewed clinical studies.
BetterMe offers personalized exercise and diet plans, as well as coach support. Other features include advice based on cognitive therapy and progress monitoring.
WeightWatchers is a nutritional approach to weight loss. It has been in the business for many years, and has a proven track record.
The app will help you find nutritional balance without having to give up the foods you love. One of its strengths is that it offers the support of an online community as well as in person, and makes you accountable for your success.
MyFitnessPal is another app that allows users to track their nutritional intake, not only in terms of calories, but also macronutrients, fiber, etc. It's also possible to set goals, and get an analysis of your results.
In this case as well, peer-reviewed clinical acceptability/feasibility and clinical value studies have been carried out, with positive results.
Window will help you if you want to practice intermittent fasting. Different fasting plans are offered; the app also tracks weight and fasting periods, keeps track of hydration, creates fasting or end-of-fasting reminders, and provides education created by expert nutritionists.
A serious problem, but plenty of options to help!
We've established that obesity is a common problem, and one that can have significant health consequences. In the presence of this chronic disease, it's best to consult a health professional first. Then, choosing one of the above applications, or one of the hundreds of others that can be found in the Nutrition & Hydration and Fitness categories of the appGuide.ca website, will certainly be beneficial to those who wish to improve their health by losing a few pounds!
Your health care professional can help you choose
Feeling confident is important. Get all the essential information about health apps by talking to your healthcare professional.
AppGuide provides reliable information about mobile health apps that allows patients and healthcare professionals to make informed, shared decisions about using a health app to track health status or act on your priority health goals.