My Journey to Gaining Health

Hi everyone, it’s me, Karli Burridge, the founder of Gaining Health. My goal with Gaining Health is to break down the science of weight and metabolic health so you can gain a better understanding YOUR individual, amazing, incredible body and become the healthiest, happiest, and best version of yourself. For today, however, I’d like to share a little bit about my professional journey so you can understand how I got to where I am today and how Gaining Health was born.  

My journey goes a long way back, probably all the way back to my childhood. I received the nick-name “Mother Hen” from my math teacher, because I was always sticking up for the kids who I felt were being treated unfairly. But, I will spare you the details of my youth, and fast forward to the end of my college days (you’re welcome)!

I graduated from the University of Arizona with dual degrees in psychology and physiology, because even as a wee undergrad, I knew that the mind and the body were NOT two separate entities. I still firmly hold the belief that you can not optimize one without the other. While this education gave me a basic understanding, I wanted to dig deeper into the causes of mental and physical health problems, and the interplay between the mind and the body. I briefly considered a career in psycho-neuro-immunology, but after deciding that it would take way too long to explain what that actually was, I decided to pursue clinical exercise physiology because of the profound effect that physical activity has on both the mind and the body. I became a certified personal trainer and was accepted into the Clinical Exercise Physiology program at the University of Texas in Austin.

During my graduate studies, I had to read a book called Prescription for a Healthy Nation, by Tom Farley. In his book, he suggested that primary care providers had the largest potential impact on health and disease prevention because a majority of Americans see a primary care provider at least once a year. I had steered away from the medical field initially because I did not want to simply cover up symptoms of illnesses by prescribing pills, when the root of 80% of these chronic illnesses had to do with lifestyle factors (which seemed to largely be ignored by the medical community). However, after a long discussion with one of my professors and shadowing several physicians and physician assistants over the summer, I decided that I was going to pursue a career as a physician assistant. However, I made a vow to myself to practice medicine on terms that I believed in. I would not ignore the lifestyle piece, and I would make this the cornerstone of my approach.

After graduating from Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona with my Masters of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies,  I started working in a family medicine practice, which also focused on integrative medicine. I quickly realized that I really had learned very little about lifestyle or nutrition in PA school, or how to integrate any of these elements into a 15-minute visit. Instead, I found myself doing what I had vowed not to do: I was writing prescription after prescription to treat hypertension, diabetes and  high cholesterol. While the “numbers” would often start to look better, my patients didn’t. In fact, they seemed to feel worse and worse as I added more and more medications to cover up the symptoms of their weight and their lifestyles, which I never had the time to discuss.

So, several years and two kids later, when my husband’s job moved us back to Texas, I was trying to figure out what to do next with my career. I really didn’t know. I was almost ready to give up on the idea that I could practice medicine the way I had wanted to.

One day, on my way to picking up my kids from a drop-in childcare after my door to door campaign of dropping of my resume at random medical offices, I saw one last, small medical office. I walked inside and was greeted by a kind woman who introduced herself as the office manager and the dietitian, and also the wife of the surgeon, who performed both general surgery and bariatric surgery. I had heard of bariatric surgery, although we didn’t learn much about it in PA school.

My knee jerk thought was “People don’t need surgery; they just need someone to help them with their lifestyle”. Even though I thought I knew so much about lifestyle and weight, I now know that I actually knew very little. I believed what I had been told about weight my entire life; if people just exercised more and ate less, they wouldn’t be overweight. So, I was not all that sold on the surgery part. However, the prospect of educating patients on lifestyle before and after bariatric surgery and assisting in surgical procedures sounded promising to me, so I took the job.  

Two short weeks after I had accepted the position there was going to be a large bariatric surgery conference in Las Vegas. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to learn about my new field. And Wow, were my eyes opened. It was my first glimpse into the world of appetite and weight regulation. WHAT??!! There are hormones that control our appetite and our weight??? Here I thought bariatric surgery was just to make your stomach smaller so you can’t eat as much, but NO, there was SO MUCH MORE to it. How did I go through all of my education and training and not know any of this?

That was the beginning of my journey to learn as much as I possibly could about this highly complex system in the human body that affects so much of our behavior and our health. Most people know so little about this subject- including medical providers.

Fairly quickly after working at the surgical practice, I started thinking about how to affect these hormones in ways that did not require surgery.  To this day, I see tremendous value in metabolic and bariatric surgery for people who need it, but there were also so many more people I wanted to help who didn’t want surgery, who didn’t qualify for surgery, whose insurance didn’t cover it, or who had had the surgery and experienced weight regain. What could I do to help all of those people, and how could I intervene earlier, so that people didn’t get so sick that they needed surgery? My answer came when I was introduced to the Obesity Medicine Association, which, at the time was called the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.

I jumped at the opportunity to learn more. I joined the organization and went to the very next conference they offered. Once again, mind blown! I learned so much and it was so incredibly powerful and uplifting to be in a room full of medical providers who shared my passion of wanting to bring TRUE health and wellness to our patients, rather than covering up all of these chronic medical conditions with band-aids in the forms of pills and devices. I really felt that I found my calling. I continued to read everything I could get my hands on and go to every Obesity Medicine conference that was offered through the organization, and to this day, still continue to do so.

I created a small medical weight management program as an adjunct to our bariatric surgery program, and expanded my knowledge in obesity medicine when I joined a family medicine practice with a separate obesity medicine clinic within its office. It was so rewarding to see what an impact this was having on my patient’s lives, and the ripple effect it had on their families, friends, and co-workers, many of whom would end up in my office themselves!

A few years later I was given the opportunity to develop a medical weight management program as an adjunct to a bariatric surgery program at a large regional hospital. I was thrilled about this opportunity, because it allowed us to bring all of the treatment options under one roof, and to provide our patients with  a truly comprehensive obesity management program, where we could give our patients ALL of the options, depending on what was the right fit for them! When we moved to Illinois two years later, I developed a similar program as an adjunct to another excellent bariatric surgery program.

Creating these programs and helping countless patients live healthier, happier lives was incredibly rewarding, and I felt a strong desire and obligation to share what I had learned with medical providers, so that they, in turn, could help all of THEIR patients. Thus, over the years, I got more and more involved with provider education. I became a regular speaker at large state and national conferences, including the Obesity Medicine Association. I have joined and chaired committees, have been a subject matter expert on a host of national projects on obesity, and have developed obesity education material for organizations and Universities such as the Yale online PA program.  I earned my Certificate of Advanced Education through the Obesity Medicine Association and have achieved the status of Fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association, one of the highest honor achievable at the organization. I am a co-author of the Obesity Algorithm and have won several awards for my contributions the field of obesity medicine.

I share this with you because I want you to know that I have dedicated my professional life to understanding weight and health, and to sharing what I have learned with as many people as I can. That is why I created Gaining Health. This is my opportunity to help as many people as I can- by supporting health care providers so that they can help their patients, and by supporting those who are struggling with excess weight with knowledge, support, and motivation.

There IS hope. There are REAL solutions. The SCIENCE is there! You deserve to hear this information! I am honored to help you on this exciting, joy-filled, and at times difficult journey of self-discovery and self-love!