The Mental Side of Weight Loss: How Healthy Behaviors Made the Difference for Tiffany

Watch Tiffany share her story

“At 383 pounds and my weight just climbing… I didn’t know how long I’d be around.”

Those were some of the thoughts that used to consume TriHealth weight management patient Tiffany French’s mind prior to embarking on a journey that transformed not only her body, but first her mind.

Before coming to the TriHealth Weight Management Program, Tiffany knew she needed to take control of her weight—and she also knew that she needed help doing so. However, starting off in another health system’s program, she didn’t see many positive results.

“It was very restrictive, and I was miserable,” Tiffany remembered of her time in the previous program.

Following a stint of no luck, she opted to explore the TriHealth program at the prompting of a friend. The difference she felt was immense and immediate.

“I came into TriHealth—I had a dietitian, I had meetings with the doctor, and they also offer behavioral health.” Tiffany said that this aspect is where the program truly distinguishes itself from others. “That behavioral health piece changed everything.”

The treatment Tiffany underwent was much more holistic than she had been initially anticipating, and she was surprised when members of her care team probed her on concepts such as unprocessed trauma. And although it was something she didn’t recognize at first, she quickly realized there was more beneath the surface.

“I’m like ‘No, I don’t have any trauma,’ but then we start talking… and I cried the whole time I was there,” Tiffany said of one of her first visits. “You think ‘Oh I wasn’t abused, I wasn’t all of these things,’ but I was bullied all through school… and all these things that you don’t think of that impacted your weight and the way that you coped with stressors in your life—I would turn to food when I was stressed out.”

The mental work of understanding why she was so inclined to find comfort in food is what really helped things finally click for Tiffany.

“I started finding my triggers, and I started figuring out how to stop those triggers before they happened,” she explained. “That missing piece that TriHealth adds in of behavioral health changed the game.”

For Tiffany, she could only follow through with the physical aspects of weight loss once she understood the mental.

“I was able to lose 200 pounds because of everything I’ve learned through behavioral health,” she says. “I was suddenly able to take a step back, get rid of the toxic voices in my head and say ‘It’s okay if the scale didn’t move, just ride it out and keep going.’”

This is an approach Tiffany said she was incapable of taking prior to her work with the TriHealth Weight Management Program. It’s also an approach that she feels truly supported in by her care team.

“I’ve never one time left an appointment feeling like I was just an appointment,” Tiffany said of her one-on-one work with her weight management physician, Dr. Katherine Lyons. “I feel like she genuinely has an interest in seeing me succeed.”

Tiffany also understands that weight management is a lifelong commitment, and she is glad to see that her care team takes that long-term approach as well.

“To go over 5 years now and to see that this isn’t just a fad, this isn’t just a trend—this is longevity,” she says of her prospects of the future. “I don’t just want to add years to my life… I want to add life to my years.”

Learn more about the TriHealth Weight Management Program today.