Tag Archives: Dr. Wayne Andersen

Dr. Wayne Andersen Presents Take Shape for Life to Doctors at KU Medical School

Just two days after nearly 100 tornados sent a devastating storm through Wichita, the city’s mayor, Carl Brewer, carved out time to welcome a gale-force of health to KU Medical School. Dr. Wayne Andersen, co-founder of Take Shape for Life and author of Habits of Health, visited Wichita last night to talk to the local medical community about creating health, not reacting to disease. It’s all part of his Take Shape for Life initiative.

“Wichita has some ugly [health] statistics,” said event coordinator Deb Floodman, who introduced the mayor. Running on only a few hours of sleep, he took notice that Deb glanced his way way when she made the statement, and laughed when responding “I’m working on it!” He welcomed Dr. Andersen, his message, and the potential it has to help reform one of the most unhealthy, overweight cities in the country. A starting point is to educate Wichita’s doctors so that they can properly care and treat thousands of overweight and obese patients.

“Our patients are patched up, but not fixed,” said Dr. Andersen at the top of his lecture. He shared some startling statistics about health and obesity, including how obesity recently overtook smoking as the most costly health problem. He explained our biological history and how we’ve gotten ourselves in to the mess we’re in because “we’re eating way too much food,” and the wrong kinds at that. And he talked down a $68 billion diet industry that “doesn’t work,” only exacerbates a seemingly endless problem.

Watch our exclusive interview from the event, then read on to learn more about Take Shape for Life.

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Posted on April 17, 2024 by Natalie K

Improved Heart Health Directly Reduces Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

By Dr. Wayne Andersen, co-founder of Take Shape for Life

Type 2 diabetes is the most common kind of diabetes, accounting for more than 90% of cases. People are at the highest risk if they are overweight or obese. In addition, advancing age, smoking, and inactive lifestyles increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Complications of this common illness can be serious. Chonically high blood sugar can damage nerves and blood vessels, affecting your eyes, kidneys, and heart. You can develop hardening of your arteries, which in turn can lead to heart attack or stroke.

Type 2 diabetes is on the rise, mirroring our increasing rate of weight gain. It’s important to understand that our obesigenic (fat-producing) environment is taking a toll on our health through type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions that are the result of poor diet, insufficient sleep, and a sedentary lifestyle. Prescription medications treat the symptoms of the disease instead of creating health. Though we cannot change our world overnight, we can change how we respond to it. Changing our focus from reacting to what is wrong to creating what we want in terms of our health is critical. We make over a 1,000 small choices a day, which either contribute to, or erode, our overall physical health. We CAN create health—and here’s how. (more…)

Posted on February 6, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Guest Blog: The Pros of Portion Controlled Meal Replacements

Dr. Wayne Andersen, the Medical Director of Medifast and the chief architect of Take Shape for Life, joins us again this week as a featured guest blogger. His book, Habits of Health (releasing this month), provides the knowledge and support needed to achieve optimal health. He also manages his own health-minded blog. You can see Dr. Andersen here at DietsInReview.com every Tuesday during July! If you missed last week’s post about Optimal Health, view it now.

dr. wayne andersenI am a firm believer in using the portion-controlled meal replacements. It is crucial to eat every three hours, and portion-controlled meal replacements (PCMRs) make this process a lot easier.

In my upcoming book “Habits of Heath,” I talk about PCMRs being the “Healthy Fast Food for the Twenty-first Century.” Our lives are so busy that is it often difficult to actually sit down and plan meals. Most of us just go, go, go until we are so hungry and hypoglycemic that we make the impulse decision to pull over and grab some McDonalds.

This is the same mentality that’s given rise to the fast food phenomenon and the “Golden Arches,” which is now a $129 billion a year business. Look at it this way, if you were driving your car on a long road trip, wouldn’t you make sure your gas tank was full before you started your journey? Well, then why do so many people get in such a hurry that they make the decision to skip breakfast, or worse, call grabbing a Starbucks Coffee and pastry eating breakfast?

We can’t afford to wait to fuel our bodies until they are screaming for food and then make the decision to fill up at an unhealthy fast-food fueling station. This is where PCMRs come in, a convenient alternative to support my “Habits of Health” program.

Medifast makes the PCMRs that I use successfully, the company I am currently medical director for. With nearly thirty years of efficacy and safety, Medifast’s meal are backed by research studies from prestigious institutions such as Johns Hopkins.

Here are a few of the reasons I am an advocate of PCMRs:
· They help you control calories.
· They offer plenty of variety.
· They’re cost effective.

What are your experiences with PCMRs?

Posted on July 8, 2023 by Natalie K