Patients Keeping Weight Off, Regaining Health with PAMF’s HMR Weight Management Program

Mountain View, Calif. – Most fad diets don’t work because the five pounds you may lose quickly return when you go back to your old eating habits. One key to success is adapting your eating habits in a way that you can successfully sustain for your lifetime.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) offers a range of programs to help people of all ages achieve healthier results. One of these programs – the HMR® (Health Management Resources) Weight Management Program – has yielded measurable success for its patients and has just released the cumulative results of their patients’ weight loss, weight maintenance and subsequent health benefits (see below).

“These results show that patients not only lose weight with our program, but truly develop the skills to keep the weight off they worked so hard to lose,” said Karen Handy, PAMF’s manager of Nutrition Services and the HMR Weight Management Program. “We see their results on the scale every week, and it was gratifying to learn about the very significant ways their health has been improved overall.”

HMR® is a medically supervised program that has helped thousands of people lose weight by emphasizing the skills and behaviors needed to live a healthier, more active life. This is a research-based, medically-supervised weight management program designed for those, ages 16 and up, who would like to lose between 10 and 200 or more pounds. There are three different diet options with weekly health behavior classes to promote lifelong weight management.

This year, PAMF’s HMR® program won seven national Gold Standard Awards for excellence for the program’s low drop-out rates and patients’ improved and sustained weight management efforts.

Changes in Medical Risk Factors*

• The average participant is keeping off 43 pounds.
• Sixty three percent of patients are keeping off an average of 59 pounds. That’s 22 percent of their initial body weight being kept off.
• Total cholesterol/HDL dropped nearly 15 percent.
• Thirty six percent of participants were able to discontinue medications needed initially (e.g. blood pressure and cholesterol control medications).
• More than 45 percent of diabetes patients on medication came completely off those medications as a result of their weight loss.
  

*Data are from 91 patients who participated in PAMF’s HMR® program for an average of three years.

“We repeatedly hear how happy patients are to be off their diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure medications. It’s both a cost savings and a significant and meaningful change to their quality of life when they don’t have to take multiple pills, run to the pharmacy for refills, or structure their days around their medication regimens,” Handy said.

All of the weight loss programs offered by PAMF are based on credible research, approved by physicians and presented by licensed, credentialed professionals.

The HMR department is located 700 El Camino Real, across the street from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Mountain View Center. Their phone number is 650-404-8260.

Additional information on PAMF’s nutrition and weight loss programs is available online at www.pamf.org/healtheducation/classes/weight.html and at the HMR Weight Management Program Web site.

For more information, contact:

Cynthia Greaves
PAMF Public Affairs
650-934-8614
greavec@pamf.org