Nicholson Clinic

When most people think of a serious weight loss plan to tackle obesity and prevent potentially serious, life-threatening complications, they imagine a highly active exercise routine and strict diet. While those two factors play a critical role, of course, a seemingly more passive practice can also give efforts a huge boost. Researchers are finding that meditation can serve as a critical component in an overall plan to lose weight and keep it off. Whether pounds are shed through diet and exercise alone or surgical intervention, such as a gastric bypass, has also been performed, meditation can prove very useful. The simple practice of mindfulness meditation, in fact, has been shown to deliver a number of benefits for those on a journey to lose weight and keep it off. Mindfulness meditation is a practice that involves clearing the mind of extraneous thoughts while focusing on a particular feeling or sensation, such as breathing. The practice is meant to help people develop the abilit...

As an estimated third of all American adults struggle with their weight, many do so with the threat of serious health-related complications driving them forward. Obesity has been strongly linked to heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer, among other concerns. Those who undergo bariatric surgery to assist in weight loss may find their risk of mortality declines as pounds are shed. The mortality-related benefits of weight loss surgery were recently looked at by researchers. The goal was to determine if gastric bypass surgery had an impact on mortality rates. All told, researchers looked at nearly 8,000 patients who had gastric bypasses performed and nearly 8,000 obese patients who did not. The study found that patients age 35 to 44 were 46 percent less likely to die from any cause in the seven years following surgery than patients who did not have surgery. The numbers rose even higher for patients between the ages of 45 and 54. Of note, researchers found that younger patien...