Refuse To Regain

End of the Year Thoughts, 2015

by Barbara Berkeley, MD At the end of the year I like to look back at what has changed in my field and how I have changed in my practice and beliefs. Has new information about weight and weight loss come to the fore? Am I using different techniques than I used to? And most importantly, what have I learned from my patients this year? My interactions with patients are always the most powerful teachers. This fact reflects what is... Read more →

Time Restricted Eating: Does It Work? You Tell Me!

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Last year was arguably the "Year of the Microbiome" in the obesity world. Considerations of gut bacteria, its health and composition, assumed 'hot topic' status. And for the first time in many years, our attention was diverted from the endless and fruitless debate about calories. Amazing! Incredible! There might be factors entirely unconsidered which have changed us from lean beings to fat ones. Indeed, as most obesity specialists had already suspected, we might have been barking... Read more →

Tips on Intermittent Fasting

by Barbara Berkeley, MD There have been some studies recently that suggest that people who consume calories earlier in the day have better weight loss. This data dovetails nicely with increasing interest in intermittent fasting, a technique that proponents believe can speed weight loss and solidify maintenance. I have written here about meal-flipping in the past. This is a trick that I use in my own weight maintenance and which I suggest to patients. Simply pick two days a week... Read more →

Primal Diet, Primarian Variants and Weight Maintenance 2013

by Barbara Berkeley, MD As each year begins, I try to reclarify my own position on healthy diet. I encourage you to do the same. We are all experts when it comes to our own bodies, yet we often cede responsibility to others: nutritionists, food bloggers, even doctors like me. The most important advice I can give you is to remind you that there is likely no one dietary truth. For those of us with an interest in how eating... Read more →

Habit and Reward: Good for Target, Good for Maintainers

By Barbara Berkeley, MD Here's an article everyone should read. In yesterday's New York Times magazine section, there was a long and eye-opening piece on the science of consumer behavior. It seems that we buy things because it becomes our habit to do so. Marketers rely on this habit and try to create it. There are times in our lives when we are more susceptible to changing habits. Target has found that pregnancy is one of those times, and it... Read more →

Tied to the Mast

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Odysseus, the wandering protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey, had a healthy fear of temptation. In Greek mythology, sailors were regularly lured to their deaths by Sirens, creatures who sang a beautiful and irresistible song. Entranced by the song, these sailors steered toward the call and were dashed to pieces on the rocks. In order to avoid this fate, Odysseus ordered his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and to tie him firmly to the ship's mast.... Read more →

Life on the Island

by Barbara Berkeley, MD No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….. John Donne, 1572-1631 As John Donne famously observed, each of us is connected to the other and to the larger world. In free societies, our belief in personal liberty often obscures this point. We are free to choose, or so we believe. But our freedoms are enormously affected by the influence of the culture in... Read more →

Maintenance is a Marathon, Babe, Not a Sprint

By Lynn Haraldson My friend Colton is always reminding me, “Life’s a marathon, babe, not a sprint.” The same can be said for maintenance. Only I forget sometimes and fail to see the big picture when I’m living inside my bubble of scale-watching minutia. In maintenance (to paraphrase Newton), for every emotion, there’s an equal and opposite “remotion.” Since reaching goal four years ago, I’ve been challenged/bored, frustrated/encouraged, confused/crystal clear and obsessed/aware. Thankfully, however, for every moment of obsession, I... Read more →

March 12: My Rebirthday

By Lynn Haraldson A monarch caterpillar weighs 8 grams by the time it spins its cocoon. It emerges a butterfly weighing a mere half-gram. I weighed 296 pounds when I started spinning my final cocoon and 138 when I emerged. “So, do you suppose I’m done?” I asked my doctor. “I think you can stop now,” she said. I weighed 138 on March 12, 2007. (My body lost another 10 pounds after goal). I’d lost 160 pounds in two years,... Read more →

“Time it was, and what a time it was, it was…”

To: 2010 From: Lynn I’m not going to miss you. But I am grateful for your lessons, which have made me a stronger person. Just do me a favor and don’t talk to 2011 on your way out the door tonight. I’d like 2011 to come into my life fresh and without bias, OK? Thanks. Tomorrow marks six years since I began my life-changing journey from morbidly obese to thin. It’s a road with miles of unpaved stretches, but none... Read more →