10:05 PM CST on Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Lisa Manzo, News 4

(KMOV) -- The Structure House is a live-in facility. Therapy is a key component of the treatment here, focusing on why you are an overeater. Participants eat between 1000 and 1400 calories a day.

"No gimmicks, shakes or pills. Three good, balanced meals a day on food anybody could leave here and put these meals together," says Dr. Lee Kern, Structure House Clinical Director.

Participants live at Structure House for anywhere from a few weeks to several months. They immerse themselves in a program focusing on balanced eating, therapy and exercise.

"I don't know anywhere else in a person's life that you come to a place where food is just for nourishment, just for nutrition. I think that's necessary for some people, not for all people. For some people they have to unplug themselves and devote themselves to living day by day with food to where it's just for nutrition body's needs," says Dr. Kern.

Starting price is about $10,000 per month.

“What makes Structure House unique is we take a more psychological perspective on this. We really want to help people look at their relationship with food to understand that often when they're overeating that it's not due to being hungry. There are psychological triggers that cause people to go to food at snack times as a meal for them., binges and so on. There are reasons for that. People need to look more deeply for those reasons,” says Dr. Kern.

The program offers three healthy meals a day to help them look at what makes it difficult to stick to that model.

“It's amazing how I hear from participants how satisfied they are with a small amount of calories, but that's because they're eating healthy. There's a lot of fruit, veggies and bulk in the meals. When you become educated you put together healthy meals and you become satisfied. That enables people to look back at what they're doing. Those 3-4-5-6 thousand calories a day. When they're satisfied on 1,200 and you look back and say what was that all about. That’s just what we want them to do, to wonder what all that overeating was about,” says Dr. Kern.

“We see people along a spectrum. Some people are significantly overweight to the point of desperation. As if you're driving in the fog so thick have to stop and pull over. We're the place they go when the crisis is so bad. They come here when they're desperate. Others are stuck in a rut of bad habits. If every month you gain a pound and do that over ten years you're going have a weight problem that's really serious,” says Dr. Kern.

“Some people are taking their life savings and putting investing it in themselves and what we hear from people, this is the first time in their lives they have taken time to take care of themselves. One thing I think we believe, You have to make caring for yourself part of your regular routine,” says Dr. Kern.

“This is an emersion experience, a full emersion experience. I don't know anywhere else in a person's life that you come to a place where food is just for nourishment, just for nutrition. I think that's necessary for some people, not for all people. For some people they have to unplug themselves and devote themselves to living day by day with food to where it's just for nutrition body's needs,” says Dr. Kern.

Structure House Web site

The Rice Diet

The Rice Diet began in 1939 when the clinic founder was searching for treatments of patients with hypertension. Their symptoms subsided when they went on phase one of the diet -- boiled white rice and fruit. It's considered the lowest low fat, low protein and low sodium diet.

Dr. Frank neelon/rice diet medical director

“The Rice Diet was started as a therapeutic diet to treat problems and the weight loss is an unexpected and unavoidable side effect of that,” says Dr. Frank Neelon, Medical Director of the Rice Diet.

“What makes it successful is I think when people come they become part of a community of fellow sufferers who work together and begin to change their life in meaningful ways. I’m fond of telling patients that diet is a Greek word meaning way of life. So I tell them they don't want to come to Durham they don't want to come for a two week, 5 month way of life. You want to come to establish a new way of eating, healthy and living that make you healthy for the future. That's the real essence is our focus on health by eating right and exercising properly,” says Dr. Neelon.

“When Dr. Kempler devised the diet in 1939 it was to treat severe hyper tension. And he did this by treating them with a diet of rice and fruit. It was boiled white rice, washed twice to remove sodium. The Rice Diet is the lowest sodium diet. We also decrease the amount of fat to very low levels; low fat, low protein and low sodium diet to treat severe hypertension. Weight loss followed from that,” says Dr. Neelon.

“When it comes to people who want to lose weight we cut their calories to 800-1000 calories a day. Still maintaining low sodium low fat focus. As they begin to achieve their goal we add grains and other vegetables as well as rice and fruit. It becomes a rice, fruit, grain and vegetable diet. Serve fish once a week. When they go home add more animal protein and non -fat dairy products,” says Dr. Neelon.

“You can't pull into a fast food restaurant and say I want an order of rice, fruits, grains and vegetables. That does make it more difficult. They have to restructure their life to do this. One of the secrets is they come here and stay long enough to see real results and they find out their blood pressure is better, weight is down, their heart healed up they've gotten rid of medicine after medicine,” says Dr. Neelon.

“Hardee's sells a sandwich that has 1,400 calories in it. That's two days of the rice diet in one sandwich,” says Dr. Neelon.

“People put real sacrifice into this. Time, money and disrupt their life and come and spend time with us and revise what they're doing. I think that accounts to a great measure for the long-term success we see, which is much better than other statistics,” says Dr. Neelon.

“One of the places we focus, coming to grips with the internalization of changing my lifestyle. And so a lot of times we spend with patients is focusing on how are you going to make a real change in your life. In addition to feeding people three meals a day we offer classes, lectures, experiential things like yoga,” says Dr. Neelon.

“The focus was always on medical aspect. People ask for cosmetic reasons, we really don’t care. It's fine if you want to look good, but that's not goal. We are not here as plastic surgeons, we are here because we want people to get healthy,” says Dr. Neelon.

Rice Diet Program Web site