Bend into Balance: Interview with Dr. Kevin Jones of Flow Wellness

In 2010, I traveled with a small film crew to Monterey, Mexico to meet Manuel Uribe for a documentary on obesity I was directing for National Geographic. At that time, he was 44 years old and held the Guinness Record as the heaviest man alive at 597 kilos or 1,320 pounds. For the last 13 years, Manuel had been living on an aged queen-sized mattress where he was restricted to perform all his daily activities and bodily functions. Manuel could not get up from that 60×80-inch bed. It was not only difficult to fathom how he endured such a confining situation, but I also wondered how he reached that point and was his weight reversible? In 2014, Manuel died at age 48 due to complications related to morbid obesity.

Adult obesity in the U.S. hit an all-time high of nearly 40% in 2022. Since then, it’s gradually dropped to about 36% in 2026 — a meaningful decline that seems to line up with the growing use of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. Since 2024, Americans’ use of GLP-1 injectables for weight loss has nearly quadrupled.

Having not forgotten Manuel’s story and curious to learn more about this rapidly escalating trend in weight-loss management, I interviewed Dr. Kevin Jones of Flow Wellness.

Excerpts from the podcast with Dr. Kevin Jones (quotes have been abridged for print version):

Kevin Jones: The tragedy with obesity is that it affects so many parts of people’s lives. It’s linked with higher risks of heart disease, cancer, stroke, longevity. And there really wasn’t a treatment for it. Primary care doctors say exercise more and eat better, but that only gets you to a point. I’m eating right. I’m exercising. I live in Bend; I get out, but the pounds just keep on adding on. Middle-aged people gain on average roughly a pound a year. No matter how hard you’re trying; your body is just slowing down and eventually that affects people. Either their exercise tolerance goes down or they have a health concern. And we’re seeing folks that are hitting that point where “I’ve heard of these treatments, I know I’m getting worse. I’ve done everything I can to get better. Would this work for me?”

And now we have this medication that can help people get to where they want to be and feel like themselves again. It’s really phenomenal.

We are seeing it used a lot more commonly now for other conditions. Mainly in the longevity space. There is a large study that showed semaglutide, which is the original weight loss medication, had a 15% drop in all-cause mortality for people who took it over a study period. And so, people are looking to say, “hey, I can actually use this medication, help you live longer.”

Adriana Marino: I am curious about how the care is provided for while they’re taking the drug. What is an appropriate weight loss per week?

KJ: That really depends on what their initial weight is. On average, 1 to 3 pounds is considered a healthy weight loss on appetite. We do have some people who have 50-plus pounds to lose, and they’ll drop like 10 or 20 pounds the first month, just really fast. We don’t want that to be sustained. But that can happen. We don’t just want to up people’s dose too fast. But most people don’t want that because you’re going to feel pretty miserable.

You start low and go slow. This is a process. It is a journey. You are going to get to your goal weight in a month. And then it’s a long-term commitment. And then also the big thing to do is to talk about what happens when you get to your goal. What do you want to do next? Because if people stop these medications, statistically, they are going to regain weight.

AM: I read that normally half the patients will gain the weight back.

KJ: Yeah, it happens very slowly. And a lot of times people will still wind up under where they were before. And so, we want to warn people that just like anything else, there’s no permanent fix. There’s no magic bullet. We do have some people that get to their goal weight and then get back to their healthy habits and stay there. That’s probably the biggest minority.

And then other people just really feel so much better on the medication that they just want to stay on it. And we work them to a maintenance dose, like a lower dose, maybe more affordable medication. And what people really find that the benefit is – that’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it – is the lack of food noise or cravings. Because when you’re living that life all the time, you don’t think about it. But people get very food-stressed. I know that was an issue for me when I was working night shifts in the ER. I’d always feel hungry because I was using calories to get some energy. And I personally take the medication. And when I started, that noise just went away and I was, like, wow, that was really, like, a big part of the background thinking in my life. And now it’s gone and it’s really nice.

Listen to the complete podcast with Dr. Kevin Jones here: open.spotify.com/episode/3d4xEAmsJz4LSdFwzfOw08?si=d-WhgoIrTIm-bdBaxWR-yQ

Adriana Mariño is the producer and host of Bend into Balance. She is a board-certified functional medicine health & wellness coach and a graduate of the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Namaspa and loves to swim, ski, hike, bike, and travel. Adriana can be reached at adrimarino@hotmail.com.

This article appears in the Source July 23, 2026.