| Q&A with Stuart Fischer |
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| by Charles Stuart Platkin | |
| Tuesday, 23 May 2006 | |
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Dr. Stuart Fischer is an eminent weight loss expert who has treated thousands of weight loss patients. For eight years, Dr. Fischer served as the host of "Vital Signs", the popular WEVD-FM weekly series in New York City. He worked with the late Dr. Robert Atkins as the Associate Medical Director of the Atkins Center. He is the author of Dr. Fischer's Little Book of Big Medical Emergencies (Barricade Books, 2002.).
Name: Stuart Fischer, MD
Birthday: July 23, 1950
Location: New York, New York
Q: Tell us how you got to where you are now.
A: Progressively more fastidious attention to image issues, climaxing with an unprecedented 8 ½ year medical practice ‘apprenticeship’ with Dr. Robert Atkins
Q: Define and discuss failure.
A: Failure is chronic inattention to personal health and appearance.
Q: Is there anything about yourself that you've changed your mind about in the last 20 years?
A: Yes, you don’t have to be a movie star to look like one.
Q: What's the next major item on your "to-do" list?
A: Write, publish, and promote a ‘diet book” that will redefine the category.
Q: Define individual responsibility and how you react to adverse situations.
A: Individual responsibility is accepting the fact that the government, medical establishment, and society have no stake in one’s health..; I welcome challenging adverse situations, a sign of transcending stress.
Q: when do you have time to think about your mistakes, mishaps, achievements, and minor victories; in other words, do you have any reflective time for yourself of your career?
A: Yes but looking backwards rarely propels you forward.
Q: What is your most influential story, fiction or nonfiction, from a film, book, magazine, newspaper or parable? Explain its impact on your life? What’s you're favorite saying?
A: The story is the plot of Beethoven’s “Fidelio’…favorite quote: “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (I’ll explain it if asked)
Q: Was there a defining moment in your life when you made a decision that changed the course of the rest of your life forever?
A: No, defining moments seem to occur every few months, if one looks carefully enough
Q: What's the most bodacious chance you've ever taken?
A: Accepting Dr. Atkins’ job offer after turning him down for three months.
Q: What's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself? What’s the biggest lesson you haven't learned?
A: I’ve got good medical instincts…..haven’t learned how to drive yet.
Q: What keeps you going (your motivation)?
A: Wanting to help others
Q: How do you stick to your diet on days when you really don’t want to? What are techniques you use to stay on track?
A; I always want to because I always need to.
Q: If you could eat one forbidden food whenever you wanted without gaining weight, what would it be?
A: I never think in these unrealistic and imaginary ways.
Q: What dessert do you dream about?
A: None (see above)
Q: If there were one healthy food item (something you love) that you had to eat every day, what would it be?
A: Dover sole and asparagus
Q: What do you think is the most important thing that makes or breaks a diet for someone?
A: Their need to appear attractive to others.
Q: How did you come to your conclusions about weight loss and dieting?
A: Through 25 years of immersion in the health care community as an internist, emergency room attending physician, and Dr. Atkins’ practice partner.
Q: Do you think that failed attempts have influenced you approach to dieting? How have past struggles helped you find a system that works for you?
A: The system that works for me, and in fact for all successful cases, is a comprehensive one. Food choices are perhaps the least important factors (as validated in a recent JAMA editorial)
Q: have you dealt with weight issues personally?
A: I took lots of fat and flab off after I graduated Yale University in 1972 and kept it off for 34 years.
Q: What’s the best book about health that you’ve read?
A: Robbins’ Pathology
Q: What are your two favorite health magazines?
A: The Annals of Internal Medicine and The British Medical Journal.
Q: What do you consider the world’s most perfect food? Please be specific and try not to answer with a category but rather with a specific food item: for example, not “whole grain” but “raisin bran cereal”?
A: The egg.
Q: What physical activity do you do to keep yourself in shape?
A: Elliptical ski machine for one hour several times per week, plus weight training.
Q: Do you have a favorite healthy recipe or cooking tip?
A: No…
Q: Do you have a Calorie Bargain?
A: Counting calories this carefully has no place in my philosophy. Bookmark:            Trackback(0)
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 May 2006 ) |
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