Transcription:
Weight Management

Prakash Chandran (Host): Weight management feels like something that should be simple. Eat a healthy diet, be active and meet your fitness goals. It's easy, right? But somehow, whether it's everyday stresses or even just boredom, it's hard to stop eating and you can't just seem to keep the weight off. Our guest today is Charlotte DuBois, Certified Nurse Practitioner and Program Director of Champion Weight Management Solutions at Champion Primary Care. Charlotte runs a 12-week program that aims to help you meet your weight management goals and overcome challenges. Welcome to the Champions For Wellness podcast brought to you by Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. We believe knowledge is the key that opens the door to a healthy life. I'm your host Prakash Chandran.

So Charlotte, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. I'd love to get started by just learning a little bit more about yourself.

Charlotte DuBois, CNP (Guest): Oh, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here today. But like you said, my name is Charlotte DuBois. I'm a Nurse Practitioner. I've been a Nurse Practitioner for a little over four years and a Registered Nurse for 25 years. So, I have quite a background in healthcare and my total interest at this point, right now, is wellness and prevention of health issues and disease. I've kept off a total of a hundred pounds myself. So, I understand those struggles with weight management and trying to get healthy and fight that battle. So, I bring that to the table and my goal is to just help people live a healthier life.

Host: Yeah, I love that. And I was just going to ask you about that. You've had that astonishing weight loss of a hundred pounds and you've maintained it for quite some time. Did anything inspire you to start that process?

Charlotte: Actually, yes. And I'll keep it as brief as I can for you. Cause I love telling people my story, but 40 years old, I started having chest pain. My back hurt, my knees hurt, and I literally could not walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath and feeling like I was going to have a heart attack and I was depressed and just didn't feel good.

A very good friend of mine actually introduced me to Weight Watchers at the time. And I kind of thought that was a little ridiculous, I'll be honest. But I went with her and I really appreciated and liked what they did for me. And I just kept going and then it just evolved from there. I just wanted to get to feeling better.

Host: Now, if I can ask you a little bit more about that. I mean, surely maybe before the Weight Watchers experience, maybe you had tried to lose weight in other ways. What do you feel like made you stick with it this time around?

Charlotte: I think that it was absolutely the fear of being unhealthy. And I had a group of people at the time that I had surrounded myself with that really increased my level of accountability and support and help through that process. And then meeting other people that shared the same kind of problems or barriers to losing weight, I guess you could say, and through just meeting them and having that support and accountability to people, made such a difference.

And I just began to feel successful and feel better. And once I saw that I could do that and have that kind of success, even if it was just five pounds a month, you know, just having some success and knowing that I'm getting healthier; it made me feel so much better. And that's what I hope to bring to the table for people too when they come to my program is that accountability and helping them know that they can be successful.

Host: Yeah. So, I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. So, you're now working on Champion Weight Management Solutions, and you're running this 12-week course, which sets the goal of losing 10% of overall body weight. Talk to us a little bit more about it.

Charlotte: Okay. Great. I'd love to. So, what happens is a patient either is referred here or self-referred whichever it doesn't matter. They come and meet with me. And we have about an hour meeting initially. And we talk about all of those things that you mentioned, what is your motivation to lose weight? What is the barriers? What is going to stop you from losing the weight you want to lose? And we see what the patient's goal is. And what I found is that the beauty of this is that over the course of the 12-weeks, they meet with me every two weeks. I raise their level of accountability and give them the support and help that they need.

They learn about food. They learn about macronutrients and micronutrients. And why is water important? Why is exercise important? And all of the package of wellness comes together. And so in that 12-weeks, we build quite a relationship and some trust for one another. And I just think that having that feeling of support, that's so important for the patients. And most of my patients do really well. I'm very proud of them, actually.

Host: Yeah, that's amazing. I do want to hear about some success stories, but first I wanted to maybe talk about some of the challenges that you've seen people have with weight loss and maybe some interesting solutions that worked.

Charlotte: Oh, okay. I think that one of the biggest fears or biggest barriers, obstacles that patients overcome is really just not knowing how to eat. They don't know what to eat. They've created habits for themselves that really, they don't even know how to cook a vegetable or essentially find their way to the vegetable row. And that may sound ridiculous, but it's true. And so one of the, that becomes an issue. So, there's a lot of teaching that we do. I've helped patients learn about making things simple. You don't have to have huge elaborate recipes, but let's just start with the basics and learn about maybe how many servings of vegetables do you need and that kind of thing.

So, the barrier a lot of times is just lack of education and that's where we have to start. Sometimes people have lack of resources so I can connect them with resources to help them find food support, grocery support, those kinds of things. Also another solution to that when there's barrier issues, I have to be very careful and work within their means. And so we try to come up with a plan to do that as well.

Host: Can you elaborate more on that when you say within their means, are you talking about financial? Are you talking about access to certain types of nutrients?

Charlotte: Absolutely both. It can be either one or both. Some people will come to me and just literally live from food bank to food bank, but they need to get their health issues under control. You know, whether it be diabetes or joint disease or heart disease. And so we have to help them to create resources or find other ways to maybe incorporate some of those other healthier foods into their diet. Because many times that level of resources, they don't have access to the healthier foods that some people have. So, I try to help them make substitutions and learn how they can change things for them within their means. Does that make sense for you?

Host: Yeah, that totally makes sense for me. And this is something that I find to be very important because it seems like eating healthy these days, seems to mean spending more money. And it doesn't feel like that needs to be the case. So maybe you can provide one example of a substitution or something that people can do to just make a healthier choice without spending a lot of money.

Charlotte: Absolutely. So, this is the first thing that I'll talk with my patients about because I want them to increase the quality of their food. And when I talk about quality, I don't mean the price of their food. What I mean is the nutrients and the nutritious benefits of their food. So, I always teach my patients of course, we would like fresh vegetables first. And then we go to frozen and if, and then canned is our third in line, and that's just because of the freshness of the ingredients and the freshness of the products. But if the patient has an easier time affording something that's on sale in a can, you know, for example, green beans or maybe it's kidney beans one week, then we need to learn to shop that way and incorporate those into our diet instead of something else, such as a processed food that might even be a little easier to afford.

Host: So, you know, one of the things you talked about is being really proud of some of the people that have gone through the program. Can you talk a little bit about maybe a success story that people should know about.

Charlotte: Oh, absolutely. I have. Let's see. Well, of course, you know, I'll have to forego names, please understand that. But I do have one of my most successful stories is I have a patient that did have quite a significant health issue, inclusive of a major liver disease, organ disease. And we we're challenged with getting a significant amount of weight off him, almost a hundred pounds.

And this gentlemen has been quite successful and he's been able to turn his health around and he's been able to improve his disease process to the point of 200 fold if I had to say, but he has done incredibly well, just with consistent changes in his diet. And he still has times when he celebrates birthdays with his family or there's holidays that have come around. And he has gotten through all of those and still maintained success with his weight loss and improving his health.

I have another patient that had very much the same situation. He was extremely overweight, diabetic, high blood pressure. We have gotten him, after 80 pounds, we have gotten him off blood pressure medication, and he is no longer using his diabetic medications either. So it is. And then the fascinating thing too, or what's encouraging as well, is many of my patients that come to me need to have hip replacements or knee replacements and they have to meet a BMI requirement many times for their insurance to cover it. And what is super successful is when I have a patient that could not walk in here because of knee pain or hip pain loses a significant amount of weight, has their surgery and comes back in and says, I can now walk around the block without any pain. And that happens.

Host: That is truly amazing and so inspiring. I wanted to ask how long has the course been running and do you find that setting that weight loss goal is the reason why you have that good rate of positive outcomes? Is it something else? Talk a little bit about that.

Charlotte: Let's see, I've been in the office for almost four years. And as soon as I stepped into the primary care, I was offered the opportunity to take over the program, which I jumped on immediately. So, it's just been over three years and I think that honestly, when patients come into my office, they get a real sense of support, not even from me, but from the staff as well.

We all, we cheer for patients when they do well, we encourage them. So, it's really a whole office environment. And I think that lends itself to success. I really don't try to badger my patients or be discouraging to them when they don't meet their goals or they haven't done as well as they've wanted to. We just try to pick up the ball and run with it from there. So, I really kind of fancy myself a big cheerleader and a coach for patients, more so than anything. And I think that's what makes things successful here. I really want to believe that.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. Just having someone that's in your corner that truly believes in you, even if you're not perfect and going through the program, I think is so incredibly important. You know, it kind of leads me to another question about accountability. Sometimes accountability is really important on journeys like this. So how do you think about that when it comes to your program?

Charlotte: Oh, that's paramount that I think that's capital A number one in the in the program. It's interesting people that usually come and meet with me the first time. I can always count on this statement being said, I know what to eat. I know what to do. And I will challenge them back and ask the patient, okay, then why aren't you doing it? If you know what to do and you know what to eat, why aren't you doing it? And that usually will be met with a resounding silence. I don't know is usually the next reply. That's because you don't have the accountability or the expectation of someone to say to you, okay, you can do this. These are my expectations of you over the next couple of weeks, and let's set some goals and you can meet those. And a lot of times patients say, I knew I had to do it because I knew I would have to see you when I came in.

Host: So, you know, at the end of the course, it looks like patients can choose to have people follow up with them. What exactly does that follow-up look like? And why is it so important?

Charlotte: Well, it is hugely important because from my perspective, obesity and overweight are a disease. And if we don't manage it for patients, if they don't have follow-up or they don't have consistency with making their lifestyle changes and improvements, it's very easy to fall off of that proverbial wagon. So, I feel like I give them a place where they can come back to when they say, oh, I've kind of I've okay I've gained a few pounds. I need to work on this again. So, follow up is important to make sure that continue with their regimen, stay on top of their lifestyle improvements and behaviors. And then I think it gives the program and the patient a sense of credibility that this is important and that their health and wellbeing matters. And I really just want people to feel better.

Host: So, you know, some people that are listening to this may be considering bariatric surgery. And I'm wondering where a weight management program like this one falls along that journey.

Charlotte: Oh, you know, I think I have learned a great deal about bariatric surgeries in the last several years, myself being quite naive about them and their role in weight management. I can honestly tell you that it is a valuable tool for some people, that I support them, if this is the route that they have to go, but it is not easy. It is not an easy route. And it is one that requires support and accountability as well. It's only a tool in the puzzle for successful weight loss and health management for folks. So, if they decide to do it, many times, they'll come back to me for continued accountability, support, nutrition education, and changes and improvements in their diets. Because just because someone has had weight management surgery or bariatric surgery, doesn't mean that they've controlled their behavior that may have gotten them to that point in the first place.

Host: Well, Charlotte, this has been a wonderful conversation, but is there anything else that you'd like to leave our audience with before we close here today?

Charlotte: Actually, you know, I just really want people to know that we're here to help them. If they're scared to come and see me or they're concerned about it or embarrassed, I absolutely don't want them to be, please give us a call and or reach out to me on Facebook and we will help you. And that's what we're here for. And never quit trying. Absolutely never quit trying.

Host: And, you know, actually the final question that I had, and you know, I know it's another way to close the show, but I think this might be interesting. You know, you have seen so many people that have been potentially struggling with their weight over the past almost four years. Out of all of those patients and all of the experience that you have, if there's one thing that you know now to be true, that you wish more people knew before they came to see you, what might that be?

Charlotte: I wish people knew that they absolutely have the right to feel better and that they can feel better. And I, everybody has that and I want that for everybody, we deserve to feel better and live a better life.

Host: Charlotte. That is the perfect place to end. Thank you so much for your time.

Charlotte: Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Host: That was Charlotte DuBois, Certified Nurse Practitioner and Program Director of Champion Weight Management Solutions at Champion Primary Care. Thank you for listening to Champions For Wellness, local caregivers, educating our community. For more information, you can call 575-437-1900. And we also have a Facebook page. If you look up Champion Weight Management Solutions and you can like, or subscribe. If you have missed one of our podcasts, you can go to gcrmc.org/podcast. Thanks again for listening. My name is Prakash Chandran, and we'll talk next time.