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Gary R. Spivak, MD
Founder and Medical Director of MinDshape

Weight loss is a lot more than just cutting calories. To truly be successful, you first need to re-shape your mind. That's the philosophy of human behavior Dr. Gary Spivack successfully uses at MinDshape to help men, women and families get healthy and lose weight. "We react with our entire mind and body to everything," said Spivack. "Nothing is just mental or physical."

Dr. Spivack is a psychiatrist and the founder and medical director of MinDshape, based in Arlington, Virginia. He has more than three decades of experience in psychoanalytic treatment, child and adolescent psychiatry, behavior modification, family therapy, group therapy and the use of medications.

Dr. Spivack believes there is mind-body interplay in everything a person does and often conscious or subconscious mental stresses can lead to a person becoming physically unhealthy or ill. "Most people don't eat when they're hungry or stop eating when they're full. They don't even know when they're hungry or not because they're simply following social or emotional cues," said Spivack.

Spivack says this "clean plate club" mentality; often brought on by years of prodding from elders, along with larger plates and portion sizes, makes it much harder to only eat what your body needs. "All these dynamics sabotage our eating habits, most people are fighting against themselves," said Spivack. MinDshape works to change these social cues by changing human behavior.

Dr. Spivack started out in pediatrics. He is not only the founder and director of MinDshape, he also runs Columbia Associates in Psychiatry, which is the largest child and adolescent psychiatric practice in the DC Metro area. Dr. Spivack says a big part of child psychiatry is getting a child's development "back on track". His interest in helping people lose weight was triggered when he saw children with adult onset diabetes. He knew that behavior changes could prevent these children from getting diabetes or other serious and avoidable illnesses. He also found that often overweight parents were blind to the fact that they were instigating their children's dangerous eating habits.

Along with the mind-body connection, Dr. Spivack found what he thinks is the main reason most diets don't work. He says people do not understand their metabolism or metabolic rate. "A lot of people actually cut down too much on what they're eating. Sometimes what they actually need is to raise the number of calories they're taking in, while also doing things to raise or reverse their metabolic rate."

Dr. Spivack says that dramatically cutting calories doesn't work because the body simply fights against it. "Our bodies have numerous fail-safes to prevent us from starving."

At MinDshape, testing a person's metabolic rate, or how many calories a person uses at rest, is the cornerstone of his or her entire weight loss strategy. Dr. Spivack says a person could have a fast metabolism, but do nothing all day, which still means he or she will gain weight. By testing a person's metabolic rate, doctors know how to create the best, most personalized treatment.

Dr. Spivack says he created MinDshape to give people life long solutions to their weight loss hurdles. "Most weight loss centers give a quick fix, which ultimately sabotages a person's metabolism. At MinDshape we change and improve behaviors with results that last a lifetime."

Jeffery says most people can relate to "the weight came off and went right back on" story and her job at MinDshape is to teach people what to eat and how to live their lives in a healthy way, so they don't repeat that same story.

Jeffery says most people eat for many reasons that have nothing to do with food. "We help people understand why they're eating. A lot of people don't even think about whether they're hungry or not. They don't stop to ask themselves, "am I hungry?" She says that for many people, they're behavior is to eat a snack at a certain time everyday, no matter what their body is telling them.

Jeffery is passionate about people eating a fresh and well-balanced diet. She says that obesity has gone up with the number of processed food products, which is why she focuses much of her energy on bringing fresh foods into people's homes.

But Jeffery says healthy eating is not about restriction. "I don't cut out any food groups because that's not practical." Jeffery says diets like Adkins or South Beach don't work because they restrict too much. "It's too hard to cut out an entire food group. People tend to binge when they bring that food group back," said Jeffery. Prepared meals don't work well either because the person doesn't learn how to make food for themselves. "They're not modifying their eating habits in a practical way."

Jeffery says a key element of her work with each client starts by learning his or her metabolic rate or how many calories that person uses at rest. "A lot of people try to over-restrict the amount of calories they take in, which is often something they simply can't maintain," said Jeffery. "Testing a person's metabolic rate gives us the perfect calorie level for him or her. They should be able to eat to that level to satisfy their hunger and then be successful with weight loss." Jeffery says that metabolic testing helps prevent a person from over-restricting how much food he or she eats. "Cutting too many calories often lowers the person's metabolic rate in general," said Jeffery, "which makes it much harder to lose weight. At MinDshape, we make sure our clients lose weight in a safe and healthy way that will last them a lifetime."

Kathy B. Glazer, MS, RD, LD
Registered Dietitian

Kathy B. Glazer MS, RD, LD is a registered and licensed dietitian. She has been in practice for over 26 years. She is a graduate of Bradley University with a BS degree in Family & Consumer Science. Ms Glazer also has a master of nutrition science from Case Western Reserve University. Her dietetic internship was at Fairview General Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio and she has completed the American Dietetic Association's ( ADA) Adult Weight Management course. She has taught weight management classes for corporations and has given lectures to corporate groups on various nutrition topics. For all her career, Ms. Glazer has worked with adults and children in weight management.

She is a member of the Northern Virginia Dietetic Association, the Virginia Dietetic Association and ADA. She is also a member of ADA's Weight Management practice group and the Sport Cardiovascular and Wellness practice group.

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