Refuse To Regain

C25K…..4BB

By Barbara Berkeley For the past ten years, I’ve longed to be a runner. I like the way runners look and I like the fact that they can’t live without their sport. Then there are the practical aspects. You can run anywhere and anytime. If you’re a runner, you don’t have to wait until 5:45 for your step class to start. You don’t have to schedule your work around that kickbox instructor you favor. You don’t need to be bummed... Read more →

No More Hiding Behind A Mask

By Lynn Haraldson-Bering What a fabulous no-makeup, who-cares-what-the-hair-looks¬-like weekend. It’s 85 degrees here in western PA. Hard to believe it snowed four days ago. I went biking, pulled weeds and laid down mulch in my gardens, cleaned the basement, went grocery shopping, visited with neighbors…and all without benefit of my “face on.” This would not have happened 170 pounds ago, and I’m not talking about the biking (although that wouldn’t have happened, either). If I ever made a public appearance,... Read more →

"FAT: What No One Is Telling You" Challenges Fat Prejudice

By Lynn Haraldson-Bering This week I watched the PBS documentary “FAT: What No One Is Telling You.” It not only brought back a lot of memories, but it challenged me to better understand the complexity of obesity. While Barbara works in the field of obesity, my only understanding of the issue is through my own personal experience as a formerly obese person, and through what I read and see in my daily life. I identified with two of the women... Read more →

Take Care of Your Beta Cells and Perhaps Live Longer

By Barbara Berkeley The body is an incredibly complex mechanism. Just when we think we understand how one part works, another layer of signaling, hormones and pathways reveals itself. Like a child playing with a Matruschka doll, we open up one of the bodys’ mysteries only to find another one within. I say this because I am about to talk about insulin and I want everyone reading this to know that I fully realize that there are many other underlying... Read more →

Sometimes A Girl Needs A Cookie

By Lynn Haraldson-Bering Yesterday, my little brother turned 43, and my mom made his favorite dessert: chocolate chip cookies. Now these aren’t just any cookies made from a recipe on the back of a bag of chips. These are the only chocolate chip cookies I knew existed until I’d grown up, moved out of the house and discovered Mrs. Fields at the mall. I have no idea where mom got the recipe, but it’s been in the family as long... Read more →

Going The Distance

By Barbara Berkeley I loved this entry on Jonathan’s blog. With his permission, I’ve reproduced it below: Persister While I was out running this morning I tripped and had kind of a tough spill. But fortunately, other than my phone, nothing was damaged. (Well, my pride was a bit wounded.) I have a bruise on my chest and a scrape on my knee, but no blood was shed, no muscles pulled, no joints twisted, etc. so all things considered, it... Read more →

Welcome to “Sustenance City”

By Lynn Haraldson-Bering The makers of Estroven, makers of a menopausal symptom relief product, launched an ad campaign last week in which a woman writes a postcard from her trip to Menopauseland: It reminded me of a question Barbara asked me in an email last week: “So how’s life in Maintenance World?” “Maintenance” truly is a world all its own, but I agree with Barbara, the name is need of a change. In her last blog, “The Unsatisfactory ‘M’ Word,”... Read more →

The Unsatisfactory “M” Word

By Barbara Berkeley As anyone who has read this blog knows, I have the sometimes annoying tendency to create new words and terms. Primarian, Scream Weight, Gong Food, IBM….the list goes on. I don’t do this to be cute. Honestly, I don’t. I’m just attempting to reframe the language of weight loss. So much of what we say about weight loss and maintenance appears wrong to me. And we keep repeating the same phrases over and over. My compulsive creation... Read more →

LeBron and the Art of Weight Maintenance

By Barbara Berkeley At the risk of alienating our dear friends and readers from elsewhere in the country, I must brag just a little. Cleveland has one heck of a basketball team. I might be one of the world’s biggest Cavaliers fans. For years, my husband Don and I have watched the changing fortunes of our home team at the Richfield Coliseum and later at the arena that would become known as the “Q.” Many years ago, after moving to... Read more →