Park Slope
Oh, behave!
Kudos, (no, not the breakfast bars), to New York Methodist Hospital. Ever on the edge of medical marvels, the hospital has yet again come up with a plan to help keep you svelte, healthy, and wise. The new short-term “Cognitive Therapy Program,” which opened about a month ago, offers a supplementary, drug-free, non-medical, and non-surgical tool that helps those who want to address the mental issues that stop them from keeping the pounds off. Don’t Standing O know it. According to additional studies in 2005, cognitive behavioral therapy significantly helps patients lose weight and maintain weight long after the sessions end.
Let’s face it, we have all gone up and down many times, and according to Dr. Yen Ling Chong, the psychiatrist who heads the initiative, and who evaluated all patients prior to having bariatric surgery, said, “About 70 percent of dieters who are successful at losing weight, initially, will regain it all — and then some — within a few years.”
The program is an individualized one-on-one collaboration between doctor and patient. Diets fail not because of bad intentions, but because they are difficult and people get discouraged. All it takes is one Krispy Kreme, one bad day, or even one bad moment to kick-off a downward spiral, and off the diet you go. So Dr. Chong recommends patients attend 10 to 12 sessions.
“After the sessions, patients have the ability to recognize when they’re acting in a way that is counterproductive to their weight loss,” she said, noting the goal is to “help patients change their behavior and be in greater control over their diet to be successful in their weight loss and weight maintenance.”
As Standing O always says, “One cookie does not a diet lapse make, it’s the whole dang box that’s the problem.”
The program accepts most major insurance plans.
New York Methodist Hospital [506 Sixth St. between Seventh and Eighth avenues in Park Slope, (718) 780–3771].
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