Refuse To Regain

Where's the Beef? Here's Mine.

by Barbara Berkeley, MD For those of you who are old enough to have lived in the pre-modern era, Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" ad campaign likely remains a sweet, if dated memory. Produced in the 1980s, before the obesity epidemic began in earnest, these commercials (see one here) featured Clara Peller, a feisty octogenarian who gave voice to the tagline. They were hugely popular, and like the development of the Pillsbury Doughboy, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and Betty Crocker, gave a specific... Read more →

You're On a Diet...So Why Aren't You Losing Weight?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD This post is an update of a previous entry. Hope our new readers enjoy it and our long-term readers will consider re-visiting these ideas. Refuse to Regain is primarily designed for maintainers--- that small and exclusive group of people who have managed to lose weight and are stabilizing (or stable) at their new size. But comments to our site reveal that many of those who read us are still in the process of active weight loss.... Read more →

Controlled by a Cookie: When Foods Become Drugs

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Do you take medicine to treat your blood pressure? Once you swallow your pill, can you control your blood pressure via sheer willpower? While such feats of bodily control are reported by swamis and other advanced body-mind practitioners, they are not in the average person's repetoire. And a good thing too, because the power of drugs to take over ailing body systems is the reason they work. Medicinal drugs are substances which enter from the outside... Read more →