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p s y c h o l o g i s t

dr . hannah marchand completed her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa. She is currently a psychologist at the Minto Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute .

Dr. Marchand has worked in various health psychology settings including bariatric surgery, oncology, cardiac and orthopedic surgery, heart transplant evaluations, behavioural sleep medicine, and respiratory disorders. She has recently returned to Ottawa after completing a year-long internship at Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago. Dr. Marchand’s research is in the area of behavioural medicine and health psychology, with a focus on exploring ways to help individuals maintain healthy lifestyle changes. She also conducts psychodiagnostic assessments and provides short-term psychotherapy interventions for patients in the cardiac and prevention program.

1 Learn to Accept Yourself and Acknowledge the Positives

Everyone comes in diferent shapes and sizes and being comfortable with who you are will ultimately help with your weight loss goals. Sustaining behavioural

changes over time is more likely with self-acceptance. When you are accepting of who you are and what you look like, rather than constantly comparing

yourself to others or focusing on what you think you should look like, you can feel more competent to make healthy lifestyle changes. Healthy lifestyle changes

can take time so it is important to set behavioural or performance goals against which to measure your success, rather than on what others think.

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