Our bariatrician, Dr. Adarsh Gupta has designed the AKG method that is based on his over two decades of experience counseling patients on medical weight loss and research. He has seen patients of all weight types – athletic, overweight, obese to severely obese. Some patients used assisting devices and some were very active in the gym. Despite the variation in weight and capabilities, there were a few common features that affect their success in reaching a healthy weight and reducing cardiovascular risk. Dr. Gupta created the AKG Method to help patients lose weight easily without limiting the food they love and without spending hours in the gym or doing boot camps.

What is AKG Method?

The AKG Method is a philosophy that helps one develop a mindset to help one learn healthy habits for eating and physical activity that they can keep. You do not need to go on a diet or boot camps. You can do it all in the comfort of your home. Our AKG Method won’t simply tell you exactly what to eat and when. Instead, it will provide you with an entire set of practical tools that will teach you how to make these choices confidently on your own each day, now, and forever.

The AKG Method has three main characteristics:

A Accountability. Several studies have shown that accountability is crucial for one’s success. To hold yourself accountable, the trick is to actually share data such as calories eaten, minutes logged on the treadmill logged, and inches and pounds lost. Coaches with that kind of day-to-day, week-to-week info were better able to help clients stay on track, according to this latest research. At Valley Forge Weight Management Center, Dr. Gupta will track your body composition and activity data via the My Health Journey app. When you have someone other than yourself who can hold you accountable for all your positive efforts is more effective than only self-monitoring, though that is still helpful if you’re not willing to share your journey with someone else.

KKcal. Calories. Calories are the energy in food. Your body has a constant demand for energy and uses the calories from food to keep functioning. Energy from calories fuels your every action, from fidgeting to marathon running. Regardless of where the calories come from, the calories you eat are either converted to physical energy or stored within your body as fat. These stored calories will remain in your body as fat unless you use them up, either by reducing calorie intake so that your body must draw on reserves for energy or by increasing physical activity so that you burn more calories. If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight. And if you eat fewer calories and burn more calories through physical activity, you lose weight. In general, if you cut 500 to 1,000 calories a day from your typical diet, you’ll lose about 1 pound (0.5 kilogram) a week. It sounds simple. However, it’s more complex because when you lose weight, you usually lose a combination of fat, lean tissue, and water.

Cutting calories requires change but doesn’t have to be difficult. These changes can have a big impact on the number of calories you consume: (1) Replacing high-calorie ingredients with low-calorie ones, (2) Reducing portion sizes

GGoal-centric: When it comes to weight loss, setting realistic and attainable goals will be one of the most important aspects of your success. Goal setting allows you to feel a sense of ownership over your plan and work towards a visible goal. Achieving small goals also encourages you to keep making changes knowing that you have been successful with previous efforts.

Goals centered around weight loss and healthy eating are sometimes too broad and tend to focus on a general goal instead of the specific steps you can take to achieve the goal. The following tips will help you create more realistic and effective goals, instead of focusing on “losing 30 pounds” or “exercising more.”

• Specific. “I will walk 45 minutes 5 days a week” than “increase exercise.”
• Measurable. “I will drink 8 oz of water every morning before eating anything” than “drink water.”
• Attainable. “I will power walk 15 min a day this week and then 20 min next week” than “I will run daily for 30 min” (if you are new)
• Realistic. If you are not a morning person, getting up at 5:00 AM to exercise is unrealistic
• Trackable. Logging your goals that are trackable boosts motivation and compliance

AKG Method at Valley Forge Weight Management Center

The best part is, you can access these tools from the comfort of your own phone at any time during the day or night, right when you need them most. With these tools, you will lose the diet mentality, focus instead on a lifestyle mentality, and weight loss will begin to feel easy again:

• Self-monitoring tools to track daily weight, calorie intake, and physical activity. At the first visit, Dr. Gupta will set you up with app to tract your body compositon and diet
• An evidence-based courses built on nutrition and psychology. You get to learn from the courses ceated by Dr. Gupta to help you learn the lifestyle skills.
• Personalized coaching to guide you through your weight loss journey. Dr. Gupta will track your progress via online platform and can offer guidance even via telemedicine consult (SMS or Video). Here are our Personalized Plans
• Resources for healthy recipes and workout plans to suit your needs. You will have access to recipes and workout in the digital library secton of the MyHealthJourney app.