Discounted Rates for Current or Past JumpstartMD Patients

• Standard Enrollment fee of $144.98 is waived completely
• Monthly Rate – $49 (normally a cost of $79.99) – This rate enables you to go to any Crunch in California.
• Monthly Rate – $39 (normally a cost of $69.99) – This rate is applicable if you choose to attend only one California Crunch location for the duration of your membership.

** Please note: These rates will not change as long as you do not cancel your membership for all of 2012 and may only increase by a fractional amount in 2013.

Personal Trainer Rates

• Package of 4 one-on-one sessions with a trainer – $199 (normally a cost of $650 for 5 sessions/$130 per session)

** Please note: This offer is limited to 2 packages per patient.

There is no additional penalty for canceling your membership if and when you should choose to do so.  However, should you wish to rejoin at a later date, the discounted rates will no longer apply.

“This study is a true wake-up call for parents, pediatricians, and our society at large. For too many decades, our society has foolishly treated obesity as a cosmetic condition when, in fact, it has always been a metabolic condition that affects virtually every organ system. And now it is affecting our children at an earlier and earlier age. Given the fact that traditional diabetes medications are less effective in children, we find a greater imperative to prevent diabetes throughout our population through weight loss. Diabetes is intimately tied to weight gain. The flipside of that relationship is that we can very easily prevent diabetes on a very dramatic scale through weight loss,” states Dr. Conrad Lai – Co-Founder & COO of JumpstartMD.

Frequently the societal focus is on adults and losing weight, but the bad habits to which we have subscribed are trickling down to the next generation. All parents wish to be good examples to their children and it’s important not to forget that being a good example should extend into instilling healthy eating habits and decision making around nutrition. In discussing how our program can benefit not only the adult participants but their children at home Dr. Lai says, “As we treat our patients, they begin to model healthier eating behaviors for their children through a family-wide emphasis on smarter choices and a greater appreciation for whole, nutrient-dense food. For our kids, the focus needn’t be on calories and weight. Our job as parents and as a society is to show them how their food choices can positively or negatively affect their health, well-being, and yes, happiness.”

So stock that fridge with real food – avoid preservatives, sodas, and items with high sugar content.  Choosing proteins, leafy greens, and healthy vegetables aren’t just good for losing weight, they are critical for promoting long-term health and well-being in all of us – young and old.

At JumpstartMD, we believe that the dietary choices we make drive our ability to lose and sustain weight. Yet we make our choices within the mental context in which we operate. Again and again, I meet people who turn to food, typically nutritionally vacuous carbohydrates, in response to stress. Ratey makes a compelling argument to prioritize movement to proactively manage our psychological challenges and lay the foundation for a healthy, happy, and productive existence. In the modern world, the hormones associated with the fight or flight reflex are set on high. Eating carbs to flood our brains with serotonin may feel good in the short term, but exercise rebalances those same neurotransmitters in a healthier and more powerful way.

My wife brought home a heavy shopping bag the other day that said, “Sometimes sweating is the best form of therapy.” Nourish your body and your brain with movement. For those needing more motivation to make that routine regular, read Dr. Ratey’s writings. You may find yourself putting the book down to go for a walk, not because you don’t enjoy it, but because you don’t want to waste another moment before taking his medicine.

“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With the two means, man can attain perfection.” – Plato

Dr. John Ratey, opens his book – Spark: The Evolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain – with this quotation.  Ratey illustrates the essential integration of body and mind with an array of evidence. We’ve spent years hearing about how critical fitness is for both muscle building and cardiovascular health. Intuitively, we also know what a difference movement can make in our mental state. Ratey provides compelling and motivating evidence that getting off the couch and moving will nourish not only your body, but also your mind.

We evolved to move, says Ratey, but modern technology and amenities have “engineered movement right out of our lives.”  Paradoxically, we have emerged more stressed than ever. Our “fight or flight” response is in motion, yet we remain motionless. That imbalance causes cognitive deterioration, i.e., we’re not as “sharp”. With diminished mental health arises higher levels of anxiety, depression, and addiction.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution. A 2000 Duke study showed exercise to be just as effect as Zoloft (Sertraline) at treating depression. That’s just the tip of this book’s iceberg; Ratey provides a deluge of evidence showing how essential exercise is to one’s mental health. In so doing, he moves beyond the negative image of exercise as a battle between pain and gain on the road to a distant and difficult goal like weight loss or health. Ratey demonstrates that exercise is a crucial component in determining the quality of your day-to-day existence. Movement improves how we feel, how we learn, and how we engage with each other.

As an example, he cites a case study involving a school system in Naperville, Illinois, which used a before-school physical education class (PE4life) to reconnect students’ bodies and their brains. Following their morning fitness intervention, in an international TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) test taken by 230,000 students, the Naperville 8^th graders raised their worldwide scores to 6^th in math and 1^st in science. The morning activity nourished their brains, making them more attentive, more receptive, and better able to grasp complex ideas. What was good for their bodies was also good for their brains.

What I loved about Spark is that Dr. Ratey lays out the science underlying these benefits but describes those changes in lay terms that makes them tangible. He explains exactly what happens in the brain that makes the morning movement an effective learning tool. He writes, “when the students….go for a mile run in gym, they are more prepared to learn in their other classes: their senses are heightened; their focus and mood are improved; they’re less fidgety and tense; and the feel more motivated and invigorated. The same goes for adults in the classroom of life….In addition to priming our state of mind, exercise influences learning directly, at the cellular level, improving the brain’s potential to log in and process new information.”

Looking at exercise and learning on a cellular level is fascinating. Exploring how the various neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine are balanced through exercise; how exercise induces brain derived neurotropic growth factor (BDNF), which fertilizes your brain cells in a way thats help you learn, grow new cells that you need, and to stay mentally sharp as you age. (Look for Part 2 of this post on 4/26.)

One of our patients made a bet with the players on his softball team. Once his goal weight was reached, he was delighted to take their money and do a bit of boasting about his success. Even better, he’s given his teammates a chance to double-down if he doesn’t stay within 5 pounds of his goal weight a year from now. This additional motivation and accountability is working very well for him.

While I don’t think gambling is for everyone, a friendly wager can make one’s dietary journey more communal. The New York Times published an article in 2009 describing similar successes. The article described a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association which revealed that people with financial incentives to lose weight are much more successful at dieting than people without them.

Want to lose weight? I’ll bet you can!

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2664

In short, the amount of carbohydrates we consume in our diet changes our need for salt. In high carbohydrate (high processed food) diets – the typical American diet today – our kidneys retain water by inhibiting the excretion of sodium (salt).  In low carbohydrate diets, and by this I mean fat burning, low insulin states where one consumes less than 60 grams of carbohydrates per day, the opposite occurs. Therein, the kidneys increase secretion of sodium (and water) in a mechanism that works, in effect, like the antihypertensive (blood pressure lowering) drugs known as diuretics. The diuretic phenomenon induced by a low carbohydrate state is described as the, “natriuresis of fasting.”

What does this mean for JumpstartMD patients?

For one, we actually encourage our patients on a low-carb, fat burning diet to ingest liberal amounts of fluids (100 ounces per day) and sodium to replenish their losses.  Strategies to replenish sodium while following a low-carb lifestyle include liberal use of the salt shaker at the table and /or by consuming 1 gram (range 1-2 grams assuming patient is not hypertensive or on blood pressure medications in which doses may need to be tempered) of sodium each afternoon in 2 cups of warm water typically through warmed bouillon or broth. Sodium replenishment is particularly beneficial during the first couple of weeks of a low carbohydrate diet wherein the greatest fluid shifts occur. Thus we encourage sodium replenishment during that period but then tailor that intake to each individual’s needs thereafter. Because the body’s salt metabolism is uniquely different when adapted to a low-carb state through more efficient excretion of salt and water, this simple strategy will help avoid many of the easily preventable side effects associated with sodium depletion and dehydration: headache, fatigue, constipation, weakness, and dizziness with standing.

Secondly, our patients’ blood pressures typically improve greatly not only because of their weight loss and exercise but independently as a result of carbohydrate restriction. How do we know that weight loss and exercise are not the sole means of improving our patients’ blood pressures? Because blood pressures typically improve significantly in the first week of treatment in a low carbohydrate state, long before the majority of their weight loss has occurred or an exercise routine commenced. This is a result of the decreased sodium and water retention induced by a low carbohydrate, low insulin state.

But there is also research to support the idea that fully keto-adapted individuals (those whose bodies have adapted to a low-carb state over several weeks of carbohydrate restriction – under 60 grams of carbs per day) show blood pressure improvements through mechanisms independent of the kidneys. Mechanisms such as increased peripheral vascular dilation (a good thing to improve high blood pressure) and decreased sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) stimulation.

Bottom line, processed foods are loaded with sodium in a high-carb milieu in which the sodium is most problematic. Which of these two culprits leads to elevations in blood pressure – the sodium or the carbohydrate? I’d argue it’s the latter.  We see tremendous improvements in blood pressure derived from properly delivered low carbohydrate diets. When in this low-carb state, the body handles salt differently and needs to be proactively managed to prevent easily avoidable side effects. Lastly, in keeping with the JumpstartMD message of eating whole, real, fresh, non-processed foods, I hope one can see from this blog how sodium in itself is not inherently bad and, in fact, is an essential and critically important electrolyte. That said, when combined with a diet replete with refined carbohydrates in processed foods, our bodies cannot handle the additional sodium load. But sodium is not the problem. It’s the carbs. Eat well. Eat real food. And stay healthy.

Thank you Jinka50. You bring up some critical points to balance out Dr. Lustig’s perspective. Your comments remind me of a quote from Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer that touches on the complexity of excess weight and how it cannot be simply caused by overeating – “To attribute obesity to ‘overeating,’ is as meaningful as to account for alcoholism by ascribing it to ‘overdrinking.’”

And so, yes, I wholeheartedly concur that sustained weight management is a struggle not simply of transforming the intellect and mind but the heart as well. At JumpstartMD, we follow that exact model through our Meals, Movement, and Mindset approach wherein we tailor our program to each individual’s unique needs – whether that is nutrition education, fitness, psychological and emotional support or a combination of all three.

I would add that in knowing Dr. Lustig, I’m confident he would concur with your assessment of the individual’s needs, particularly those with addictive tendencies as you suggest.

One of Dr. Lustig’s colleagues at University of California at San Francisco and a former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David Kessler, wrote a must read book on food addiction entitled, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.

In the book, Dr. Kessler describes how the food industry has engineered endless combinations of sugar, salt, and fat that quite literally “light up” the “opioid” pleasure centers in our brains to produce a neuro-chemical response analogous to other addictive substances. The end product: “conditioned hyper-eating” geared to sell more hyper-palatable food products but concomitantly catalyzing the obesity epidemic.

Geneen Roth has also authored several worthy books on the subject of emotional eating – Feeding the Hungry Heart, When Food is Love and Women Food and God.

And while some might scoff at the idea of describing food as addictive, my experience in seeing 1000’s of patients over the last several years lends strong support to your viewpoint. By way of anecdotal examples, there are the countless numbers of new patients we see who, upon hearing about our low carbohydrate approach, immediately volunteer, “Oh yeah, I’m a carboholic.” All echo a similar sentiment that carbohydrates are “like adding gasoline to my appetite’s fire.” And while some can go back to limited amounts of processed carbohydrates (like sugars) on maintenance, many find they are unable to do so without the first taste snowballing into a downward spiral of further cravings and recurring weight gain. Call it “conditioned hyper-eating,” call it addiction, call it what you will – but if that doesn’t sound like the person who “can’t have just one beer” then I don’t what does.

First, let’s take a look at the association between sodium intake and blood pressure. The data seems weak to me – simply put, we’re barking up the wrong tree. Here’s an example: a moderate reduction of sodium intake from 3600 mg a day (the US average) to 2300 mg per day only leads to about a 2 mm Hg reduction in blood pressure for an individual (see 2009 Cochrane review (“Effect of Longer Term Modest Salt Reduction on Blood Pressure”) and 2010 meta-analysis by Crystal Smith-Spangler et al. (“Population Strategies to Decrease Sodium Intake and the Burden of Cardiovascular Disease”)). That’s essentially nothing. Much more important for someone who wants to improve their blood pressure and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease is sustained weight loss (if overweight) and exercise.

Where do we get our salt? 80% of our daily sodium intake comes from processed and prepared foods (restaurant meals and processed foods such as breads, cereals, snack, pasta, soups, etc.). If you want to cut sodium intake massively, cut processed food intake and eat mostly freshly prepared foods from scratch. Why? – Because, only about 5% of sodium intake is added at the dining table with the salt shaker. Don’t worry about salting cooked vegetables or other home prepared foods if that’s mainly what you’re eating. This amount of sodium is minimal and nowhere near the amount consumed when eating processed foods. (Look for Part 2 of this post on 3/5.)

Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Despite consuming around 1500 more “calories” a day than he did at his baseline (largely because he was now consuming higher quantities of fat than before and eating to satiety), by lowering his carbohydrate intake dramatically (eventually to around 3% of total caloric intake), he lost 27 pounds and dropped his percent body fat to around 7% while adding 1 pound of muscle mass. Meanwhile, his pre-diabetic “insulin resistance”: gone.  Cholesterol profile: dramatically improved to the point where he now has a “low” cardiac risk profile.

To what does he attribute his weight loss despite an increase in caloric intake during that period? A change in his basal metabolic rate (the amount of energy required to support life at rest) in response to his reduced carbohydrate diet. Dr. Attia has defied what is conventionally held dear. He is eating more “calories” daily and working out the same amount but has lost 27 pounds. Bottom line, he tailored a regimen that suited his individual underlying genetics and improved his weight and health through significant carbohydrate restriction. Regardless, his story should spark the desire for further study in larger at-risk populations.

Now, what about hunger?  There’s another difference in each “calorie.” A low-carb diet with a moderate intake of protein is a “high satiety” diet that curbs people’s hunger at a lower calorie count. That’s because carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates and sugar, promote cravings for more carbohydrates, making people hungry for more. Meanwhile, protein stimulates hunger hormones that curb hunger. Trust me, this notion has not been lost on the food industry by combining, in what Dr. David Kessler (author of, The End of Overeating – Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite) described as “endless combinations of sugar, salt, and fat.”  I can’t tell you how many patients walk into clinic and volunteer their self-described “addiction” to carbohydrates. It’s like an A.A. experience. “Hi, I’m Johnny and I’m a carbaholic – HELP!” In essence what they are saying is that eating carbohydrates is like pouring gasoline on their appetite’s fire and leaving them craving more.

Once they go into a low carbohydrate state, they find themselves free of carbohydrate (and generally other food) cravings and comfortably and steadily satiated at a lower daily caloric intake. On maintenance, it’s no different. Carbohydrate restriction fundamentally changes people’s drive to consume to excess. So long as people can stay below their individually determined personal threshold of carbohydrate intolerance, they can maintain their weight loss and the associated medical risk factor reductions without the kinds of onerous stressors that Tara Parker-Pope’s article “The Fat Trap” detailed regarding her battles with weight loss and maintenance in The New York Times Magazine in January, 2012.

Ms. Parker-Pope’s point of view is sad, defeatist, and misguided. But don’t be fooled by those who haven’t succeeded. Given an intervention that offers the proper guidance and support, people suffering from excess weight can achieve and sustain their goals long-term, as is the case with the majority of our patients at JumpstartMD.

I’m not saying calories don’t count entirely. They do count, but we think about them wrong in terms of what is causal and what is an effect. We should think more about biology (how calories affect the hormones that regulate fat formation, our metabolism, and our appetite) and less about physics (how every calorie is the same no matter the source based on how much heat we can generate by its incineration), as the latter is not what really matters. What our bodies do with the calories we eat is what is important. Avoid the wrong types of  nutrients that drive us into obese states resulting in illness.  Opt for those nutrients that will help us stay lean and thrive –while eating delicious, whole, real and fresh foods. Now that is sound nutrition.  And that is our primary goal and the basis of our program. I’m more than encouraged by the results of our successes.