Weight Loss Doctor Publishes Book

A weight management physician from St. Luke's has published a nuts and bolts guide to weight loss.

Dr. James Donovan works with patients through his Weight Loss Essentials program at St. Luke's Miller Creek Medical Clinic in Hermantown.

He started writing the book, A Complete Guide to Weight Loss, when he found his program was becoming so popular that people had to wait several months before they could get a spot in his introductory two-hour seminar – the first step in the program.

Written in down-to-earth language, Dr. Donovan writes from the perspective of someone who experienced his own, personal struggle with weight loss.

"I am a physician. I can study for 16 hours at a crack. I can sit in a deer stand quiet as a mouse for hours on end, but I have a hard time controlling eating. It wasn't compulsive eating; it was craving. I had to find out what was going on," he shares with the reader in chapter one.

One of the most popular aspects of Dr. Donovan's weight loss program with patients is the measuring cup-free diet. Instead of excessive calorie counting, he recommends portion control based on the size of a person's hand, which is proportional to a person's lean body mass.

"It dawned on me one night that the problem with most diets is that a portion for me is not the same as one for my wife or my kids or the other guys in my astronomy club," writes Dr. Donovan. "But, since we bring our hands to every meal, we can tell how much we need to eat based on our own hands."

Through the Weight Loss Essentials program, Dr. Donovan equips patients with the education and knowledge needed to be successful.

"I treat obesity as a chronic disease as it is and look at obesity medically – just as with any other chronic disease," he says. "I am not selling a quick-trick diet but a lifestyle plan to treat obesity chronically on a daily basis. I explain the pathophysiology of obesity and use food choices as a medication against it."

Dr. Donovan's book is available to order from www.amazon.com in paperback or as a Kindle download, or from him directly at St. Luke's Miller Creek Medical Clinic. For more information on the Weight Loss Essentials program, call the clinic at 218.249.4600.