Why Lifestyle Medicine?
As a healthcare practitioner I constantly seek new and more effective treatment modalities to help clients reach their health goals. As I studied for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine board exam I began implementing the six pillars of lifestyle medicine into my own practice and clients immediately responded positively. Here is the short list of why a lifestyle medicine centered practice appeals to me:
Relies on evidence-based treatments: Lifestyle medicine is evidence-based. It is not a fad; it is not an unproven complimentary or alternative treatment.
Prevents and reverses lifestyle related diseases: Proven therapeutic approaches are utilized as first-line treatments to prevent and even reverse life-style related diseases like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, with promising outcomes for certain auto-immune diseases.
Promotes real behavior changes: Practitioners are trained to motivate behavior changes after carefully considering a patient’s stage of readiness to change.
Utilizes mutually agreed upon action plans to create sustainable change: The practitioner and the patient work together to develop a written action plan that can be implemented realistically and which helps the patient move successfully towards sustainable and beneficial changes.
Promotes long-term and cost-saving healthy habits: Traditional approaches of care treat the patient after they have acquired an illness; they do nothing to address causes. Patients are expected to passively comply with prescribed treatments and stay on medications, often with strong side effects, while they watch their illness persist. In lifestyle medicine, the expert provider acts as a coach to guide the engaged patient to significant and sustainable changes. Treatments are long-term, not to mention cost-saving.
Improves the patient’s overall short and long-term health outcomes: By focusing on all 6 pillars of lifestyle medicine, the practitioner and the patient work together to increase the odds of proven long-term positive outcomes and greatly improve the patient’s overall health. Please see below.
As a Board Certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, I share the ACLM’s vision:
“A world in which all physicians and health professionals have been trained and certified in evidence-based lifestyle medicine, integrating healthful behaviors into their own lives, while incorporating a lifestyle medicine-first approach to treating root causes of lifestyle-related diseases into their clinical practices.”