Smart Journey Medical Weight LossConveniently located to serve Fountain Valley, CA
The process of losing excess weight requires the support and encouragement of a dedicated team of professionals who will provide all the resources you need to help you achieve your goal. Smart Dimensions™ offers a compassionate program that provides comprehensive care and support to patients in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, and San Bernardino, and people from all over the world, who struggle with excess weight and obesity. Our friendly staff is available to answer your questions at our convenient Fountain Valley office.
What is the Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program?
The Smart Dimensions™ Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program is a specialized weight loss regime supervised by a team of qualified physicians and specialized health professionals who oversee every aspect of your progress. The program’s focus is on life-long weight management rather than short-term solutions that too often prove only temporary. Specialized programs are also available for adolescents and diabetics. The treatment combines medical monitoring, behavior therapy, exercise instruction, and nutrition education.
Meet Katrina Haghighi, Program Director for Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program
Katrina joined the Smart Dimension team in early August 2015 as the Program Director for Smart Journey non-surgical medical weight loss. She received her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics, Food Administration and Nutrition at Cal State University, Long Beach. She completed her Dietetic Internship through Oakwood College of Alabama, Huntsville and has been a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics since 2000.
Is Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Right for Me?
Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss provides comprehensive, medically supervised treatment for mild, moderate, and severely overweight adults. This program will serve patients who don’t meet criteria for surgery, patients who do not want surgery, and patients who need help with weight regained after surgery or other past weight loss attempts.
What is the Philosophy Behind Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss?
At Smart Dimensions™, we know all too well that weight management is often a difficult challenge for many of us. An individualized approach to weight loss is essential because our individualized genetics, lifestyle, behaviors, and physical activity all contribute to our unique weight loss circumstances. By using the most advanced methods and medical monitoring, the Smart Journey team of professionals can help patients lose weight safely and successfully.
The Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program emphasizes helping individuals achieve a healthy lifestyle based on the following principles:
- Obesity is a disease that requires long-term treatment for successful management.
- Health benefits are associated with a modest amount of weight loss (5 to 10 percent or more of one’s body weight), as long as it is maintained.
- Changes in eating habits are essential to the process of weight loss.
- Physical activity is important for long-term weight management success.
How Does the Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program Work?
Gradual weight loss is achieved by following a structured, low-calorie meal plan that includes meal replacement products. The program focuses on:
- Physicians will medically monitor treatment.
- Patients will learn to make better food choices and become more conscious of proper nutrition.
- Patients will learn to gradually increase the number of minutes they engage in physical activity.
- Patients will learn weight loss skills as well as strategies for long-term weight maintenance, by adopting a healthier lifestyle that can be maintained.
What Does the Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program Offer?
The Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program offers four areas of specialized care and monitoring, to accomplish a complete and comprehensive reprogramming of your lifestyle and to assure that not only will you reach your desired weight, but that you’ll also be able to maintain it!
Medical Monitoring
Smart Dimensions™ physicians are trained to recognize medical conditions related to obesity and excessive weight as well as weight loss process itself, and to monitor changes in patient health. Regular medical monitoring helps reduce health risks related to weight loss and enables the staff to make appropriate adjustments to a patient’s treatment.
Lifestyle Modification
With the help of the behavioral staff, Smart Journey patients will learn to:
- Develop healthier behaviors.
- Identify triggers.
- Assess their environment.
- Make positive lifestyle choices.
- Establish an encouraging support group.
Nutrition
Nutritional education provided by registered dietitians will teach patients how to make healthier eating choices through individualized meal planning. Patients will also learn the importance of identifying environmental factors that influence weight gain and learn how to manage their surrounding environment to support ongoing weight control.
Individual consultations with patients are provided for meal planning. Most meal plans utilize meal replacements, which are high quality, calorie-controlled nutritional products.
Physical Activity
A physically active lifestyle is an essential component of health and weight management. Physical therapists provide guidance in establishing a safe and effective physical activity routine that best suits each patient.
Is the Program Safe?
At Smart Dimensions™ the safety of our patients is our highest priority. Throughout the program, our patients are treated and followed closely by physicians trained in internal medicine. Our patients see Smart Dimensions™ physicians and physician assistants on an ongoing basis throughout their time in Smart Journey Medical Weight Loss Program. The frequency of these visits will depend on the medical condition of the patient, what medications the patient is taking, and the patient’s individual treatment protocol.
During medical visits, patients are assessed for side effects that may occur during treatment, and active medical conditions such as diabetes and hypertension are monitored closely. Laboratory studies are done at the outset of treatment and on an ongoing basis throughout the treatment process. The frequency of these tests is also determined by the patient’s medical conditions, medications and treatment protocol.
Coordination of care with the patient’s primary care physician and other specialists takes place as needed throughout the treatment process. Our program is therefore very safe. The medical monitoring as noted above ensures a close watch on all patients and their medical conditions. We also provide physician on-call availability to our patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, should the patient need to speak with our physician for any reason.
Will I Be Able to Keep the Weight Off?
Obesity is a chronic disease. Chronic diseases by definition cannot be cured. Our treatment focuses on control and healthy weight management. Losing weight and maintaining weight loss (controlling weight) are both difficult to do and require different strategies and skills. Our treatment is designed to help patients lose weight as well as giving them the required skills to help keep it off. Our own studies have shown that a number of factors can contribute to improving the maintenance of weight loss. Patients who attend their group sessions regularly, develop a regular exercise program, and adhere to it after losing the weight, do much better when it comes to controlling their weight. Utilizing the skills learned while in treatment and continuing to put some effort into the maintenance process can help patients control their weight and keep a significant amount of weight off for a long period of time.
To have a personal consultation with a Smart Dimensions™ gastric sleeve or gastric bypass surgeon, Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, and San Bernardino residents can contact our Fountain Valley practice. We serve patients throughout the United States and the world. Please call or text 714-861-4666 today to schedule your free initial consultation!
