September 2007

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The fitness and weight-loss market calls out to you

5 tips to get started in fitness and weight loss
By Adam Bordes, DC

Current statistics indicate that 44 percent of all women and 29 percent of all men admit to being on a diet at any given time.

Those statistics explain why the weight-loss industry now boasts annual revenues of more than $40 billion! ("Weight reduction center" memberships bring in $10 billion and "diet foods" bring in $30 billion.)

The statistics also indicate people want solutions to their weight issues, so it makes sense to tap into this market.

Here are some tips on integrating fitness and weight loss into your chiropractic practice:

1. Understand what is best for your patients. If your patients are deconditioned and extremely above their ideal weight, the best chiropractic adjustment will only merely provide temporary relief.

Encourage your patients to adopt a healthier lifestyle, help them take responsibility for their own health, and teach them to rely on more than just your hands for their optimal health and wellness.

2. Give patients what they want, and offer what they need. Unfortunately, patients typically don't care about their spine or nervous system.

They rarely care about stabilizing their spine, increasing core strength to prevent reinjury, or optimizing the functioning of their nervous system with the intention of living life to its fullest potential.

The only way you are going to get your patients to do what you need them to do is to give them what they want, and offer them what they need.

If they want to lose weight, tell them how the exercise and nutrition program you recommend will help them shed unwanted body fat. If they want to improve their cardiovascular endurance, help them understand how the training program you prescribe will help knock 10-15 minutes off their race time.

Once patients understand you are truly giving them what they want, they will be more likely to do those things you know are best for them.

3. Walk the talk. When patients look at you, do they see a picture of health and fitness?

When you ask a patient if she has been doing her exercises,

Patients are more likely to adhere to your home-care recommendations when they know you, yourself, are living the lifestyle you are asking them to adopt.

4. Hire a registered dietitian and trainer. How many health and wellness courses did you take in chiropractic school? How many hours did you log in front of an exercise physiology textbook?

Surrender to the fact that chiropractic college prepared you to function effectively as a chiropractor, not to provide patients with easy-to-use information about diet and exercise.

A well-qualified registered dietitian (RD) and personal fitness trainer (PFT) are better suited to provide nutrition and fitness services in your office than anyone else. Hire them as employees or charge them rent to work out of your office. Either way, your patients will appreciate that you care enough to offer a one-stop shop to all of their health and wellness concerns.

5. Learn the lingo of the fitness industry. While the words facet arthrosis, discogenic spondylosis, and subluxation make perfect sense to you, the words periodization cycle, RPE, and oxygen debt make just as much sense to a certified personal trainer.

One of the most effective ways to "learn the lingo" of the fitness industry is to become certified yourself. This suggestion is not to imply you should take time away from your adjusting table to perform nutrition evaluations or personal training sessions. But rather, an understanding of the language shows trainers or dietitians respect and improves communication with them.

As you learn their language, teach them yours and explain the types of modifications they need to make to exercise programs they are designing for your mutual patients.

Integrating fitness and weight loss into your chiropractic practice can be a fairly simple process. After you change your own consciousness about your patients' health, theirs will change as well.

Adam Bordes, DC, is the owner of Southern Maine Spine and Joint Center in Portland, Maine. He has authored several books, articles, and newsletters and has appeared on television, radio, and conference stages for more than a decade. He can be reached at dradam@smsjc.com.

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