Beyond Dieting: Alternative Approaches to Weight Loss

Beyond Dieting: Alternative Approaches to Weight Loss.
How acupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, prayer, and other mind-body practices may
help you lose weight. (Not that you need to...)

By Shahreen Abedin


WebMD FeatureReviewed by Laura J. Martin, MDTo lose weight, some people look beyond diet and
exercise. Would methods like hypnosis, acupuncture, meditation, prayer, and traditional Eastern methods
help budge the pounds?
Perhaps. But if you want to ditch diet and exercise altogether, think again.

“The bottom line is to be more active and consume less calories,” says Elisabetta Politi, MPH, RD, LDN, CDE, nutrition director at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, N.C. “There is no magic bullet for solving your weight loss problem."
So the basics will always be eating right and exercising.
But there is a "third part, the mind-body aspect, you need to make sure you're not missing out on," says Wendy Kohatsu, MD, an integrative medicine specialist and assistant clinical professor of family and clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Most complementary approaches don't have much research showing how well they work for weight loss. Some are tricky to test by Western standards, and not enough studies have been done to determine effectiveness.
Here's what you need to know before you consider trying these methods.
Acupuncture...