Any Beauty and The Beast fans out there? Quite an amazing music score for a presumably child’s movie/cartoon/show. One of the funny lines was uttered by one of the characters, saying, while looking at Baroque Vermeer’s painting, Girl With A Peral Earring, “If It’s Not Baroque, Don’t Fix It”. This, of course, was a play on words coming from a commonly used statement: “If It’s Not BROKE, Don’t Fix It.”
Okay, enough movie/show trivia, what does any of this have to do with weight control? Here goes: When people are following a certain regimen of dietary intake and exercise, and weight is coming off every week, I encourage those patients to keep doing what they are doing until proven otherwise ineffective. As an example, at the start of the program, we discourage the use of protein bars/shakes as for most people, this strategy is ineffective for weight loss success. However, if people are incorporating these as snacks or even meals AND weight loss success is occurring, there is no reason to “fix” any of this.
Conversely, if a patient is not losing weight to his/her satisfaction, we do need to take a deep dive into exactly what that person is eating, exercise patterns, water intake etc. That situation needs “fixing”, as clearly that particular strategy is not working for weight loss.
Some people simply eyeball portions, really do not plan much and still are able to shed weight. However, other people need to be quite vigilant in tracking exchanges of the food groups, count the ounces of water being consumed and plan their snacks and meals. For those people obtaining the weight loss they desire, there is no reason to change course: If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Fix It. However, if the scale seems to be stuck, there is no such thing as a physiologic “plateau”…This CAN be “Fixed”.