In 2009, Diana Weiner and her husband Rob took a vacation to Alaska. It should have been fun, but Diana Weiner was miserable. She weighed 337 pounds, and the extra weight made the journey a chore.

She considered gastric bypass surgery as a weight loss solution, but her husband was opposed to it. Still, Diana Weiner knew something had to be done — she was suffering from high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis and developing sleep apnea.

Her husband, too, wanted to make a change. At his heaviest, he weighed almost 300 pounds. The Weiners have an 11-year-old daughter, and understood that cultivating healthy habits would keep them young and vital for years to come.

“We want to be around,” Rob Weiner, 48, said. “We want to see her get married. We want to see her have children. And if we stayed the course, we wouldn’t have been. That’s the plain truth.”

The Weiners, who live in Fort Myers, heard about Nuviva (formerly New Life Medical Weight Loss) from a colleague, and on August 16, 2009, decided to give the medically-assisted weight loss program a try. Diana Weiner hoped to lose weight, although she was surprised at how effectively the program worked. Within the first week, she dropped 15 pounds.

Within six months, she shed more than 100 pounds, and she is still losing weight.

“I never thought I’d lose it this quickly and this much,” Diana Weiner, 51, said.

She described the program as “easy to follow, not much guesswork.”

Diana Weiner also praised the program as highly personalized. The Weiners kept a spreadsheet of how much weight they lost each week; if they discovered they didn’t lose the amount of weight they wished, they consulted with Nuviva staff, and adjustments were made to help them achieve their desired results.

If one of the Weiners felt tired, the staff made dietary suggestions to help them recapture their energy. The process was never intimidating, Diana Weiner said.

“It’s like going to the doctor, basically,” she said. “They’ll work with you.”

Rob Weiner readily admitted that he doesn’t like shots, so he was initially concerned about receiving the weight loss supplement injections that are administered as part of the program. Among these is a hormone, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, which is self-administered, and lipotropic B12 and MIC (methionine, inositol and choline) injections. This combination of vitamins and amino acids is designed to bolster clients’ energy and aid in weight loss.

While Rob Weiner was not worried about the injection’s contents, he said that he wondered how he would respond to receiving frequent injections. Ultimately, the results far outweighed the mild discomfort, he said.

“As it turns out, that phase does work really well,” Rob Weiner said.

Nuviva Medical Weight Loss, which recently opened a second location in Naples, also works with its clients to reshape the way they think and feel about food. That was vital to her success, Diana Weiner said. She was raised in a family where the culinary culture was one rich in sugars, starches and other carbohydrates. She said that Nuviva helped her discover proper ways to eat, while her husband helped by taking over the family’s cooking.

Rob Weiner said he also learned new, smarter ways to shop and cook, such as preparing meals with less calories, carbohydrates and oils. Also, when he eats out, he now knows how to cut calories from his plate as well.

For his part, Rob Weiner has also achieved significant weight loss — he is now 192 pounds. Diana Weiner’s sleep apnea has dissipated, her blood pressure is in check and the symptoms of her rheumatoid arthritis have disappeared.

The program has helped them accomplish their goal of sensible, sustainable weight loss, Diana Weiner said. The couple believes they are treading a path that will keep them in their daughter’s life for many years.

“If you have the right mindset and you’re motivated and you have your goal, you can achieve it,” Diana Weiner said.