Refuse To Regain

Our Healthcare Industry: NOT

by Barbara Berkeley, MD It's in the headlines. It's on your mind. It's health care. As of December, 2016 the United States was spending 17.8% of its gross domestic product on health care. That's 3.2 trillion dollars or about $9,990 per person each year. The imbroglio over Obamacare is the direct consequence of our enormous health care problem. Proper coverage is too expensive for many of us and beyond any reach for truly sick people unless there is a contribution... Read more →

Mr. Warburg Surfaces Again. The Link Between Diet and Cancer

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Because of my interest in the potentially toxic effects of too much sugar on the body, I became fascinated with the work of one Otto Warburg back in 2010. At that time, I published this blog about him. Warburg believed that cancer cells were unable to live by normal cellular processes and that they relied on sugar...and large amounts of it---to live. The thought was that cancer cells might be able to be starved to death... Read more →

The Holidays: Videos to Keep You Thinking and (Maybe?) Away From the Cookies

by Barbara Berkeley, MD In our practice, we try to see our patients every week. It's a lot of personal contact, but we've found over the years that people who are working on healthy weight behaviors need an "island", a place where it's ok to see the world differently from the view of their friends, family and co-workers. And they need to have a moment on that island frequently. More so over the holidays. Our eating behaviors are directly related... Read more →

It Is BALLOON! Gastric Balloons for Weight Loss Return

by Barbara Berkeley, MD OK. So you have to be as old as I am to get the title of this post. It comes from the incredibly silly 60s comedy "F Troop", a show about the misadventures of a remote US Army outpost somewhere in the Wild West around the end of the Civil War. It featured dumb jokes, broad slapstick and politically incorrect Indians. If you grew up in the New York area, you were only too familiar with... Read more →

Weight Loss in America: The Definition of Insanity

by Barbara Berkeley, MD What is the definition of insanity? Albert Einstein put it this way: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Who are we to disagree with the greatest of mind of the 20th century? This week we were treated to the latest data on the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States. We sure talk a lot about obesity and we sure claim that we... Read more →

What LeBron Can Teach Us About Weight Control

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Whether or not my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers are able to prevail as champions this year, there is no question that they have delivered a gutsy performance in this year's NBA finals. When LeBron was in Cleveland during his first stint, I frequently wrote about him in this blog. I thought, and still think, that there was a lot to be learned from someone who pursued his goals with such single-minded intensity. In my own "sports career"... Read more →

The Bad Egg: How We Tell the USA What to Eat

by Barbara Berkeley, MD The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which convenes every five years, have come out with its latest recommendations. Sugar is out. Eggs are back in. Fat? Still unclear. While we are finally starting to move in the right direction---a little---these guidelines remain mostly in the mode of previous directives. Count teaspoons, eliminate or add back individual elements, dissect your diet into ever-changing parts. Keep your eyes peeled for the latest change. We might be wrong! As frequent... Read more →

When Public People Regain Their Weight

by Barbara Berkeley, MD One of RTR's most visited blogs is the one I wrote about Mike Huckabee's weight re-gain. There is no question that we are all fascinated by public persons who lose weight, proclaim that they have found the permanent answer, then re-fatten before our eyes. Kirstie Alley is the poster child for public regain, followed closely by Oprah. The cover image to the left appeared in January, 2009 just as my book was being published. Despite many... Read more →

LeBron Goes Low Carb: More Refuse-to-Regainers?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Although I have written many posts about LeBron James (to the consternation of many of you, I'm sure), I have never written about LeBron's own weight. It never occurred to me, even though he has definitely gotten noticeably larger over the past couple of seasons. Now, LeBron has reportedly gone low-carb in order to get back to optimal playing weight. This article in The New York Daily News is just one of the many written after... Read more →

On Body Re-invention and the LeBron James Story

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Whenever this blog turns to my basketball obsession I always try to warn readers first. If you are not interested in my ravings about Le Bron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, skip this post. But really, how can you not be interested in a story that reads like fiction playing out in real life? Should Cleveland win an NBA title in the next year or two, the screen writer for the movie that surely will be... Read more →