Refuse To Regain

Welcome to Refuse to Regain

If you are new to this site, I want to welcome you.  Please visit frequently!  You can do this most easily by subscribing to my blog feed.  You can enter your email on the left and you will be notified of new blogs as they are posted. 

RTR (the website) was created to further support my book: Refuse to Regain:12 Tough Rules to Maintain the Body You've Earned.  The book sums up what I've learned so far in over 25 years of practice as an obesity specialist including my strong advocacy for a variant of Primal Diet for weight loss and maintenance.   I sincerely hope you'll read and enjoy

Whether you are losing weight, maintaining a weight loss, contemplating a change in diet, or struggling with the frustrations of regain, I think you will find something that makes you think within these pages.  Please browse through the archives (see them listed in the sidebar on the left)  to see articles of interest posted from 2008 to the present.  For my favorite posts and reader favorites, check out "BEST OF REFUSE TO REGAIN" in the category list. 

Remember that weight loss is just one part of reinventing your life.  Always challenge yourself in other ways while trying to get healthier.  The photo above comes from the best moment of my latest personal challenge: winning the over 40 division as a Salsa soloist in international competition.    

For daily postings about weight and maintenance, and for more opportunities to interact, please visit and/or  "like" my Facebook page at Refuse to Regain: Barbara's World.   I can also be found on YouTube by searching bberkeleymd. 

As always,  I welcome your comments and feedback.

Thanks for visiting and hope you will become a regular reader!

Barbara Berkeley, MD

 

Intermittent Fasting: A Maintenance Tool?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD You may be interested in a study that was published by JAMA Network last month and drew some positive conclusions about Intermittent Fasting. Intermittent Fasting remains a topic of interest for those who want to lose weight and for those who treat those people. There are a few important questions. First: does it work? Second: Is it healthy? Third: Is it sustainable as a long term intervention? The JAMA article, which you can read HERE, is... Read more →

Are You a Dietary Fundamentalist?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD I was struck today by an opinion piece by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff on Medscape, an educational physician website. Dr. Freedhoff, a thoughtful commentator on the diet and obesity scene, contends that the stridency of the Low Carb Community is turning people off. Many Low Carb advocates have gone over the top, he says. They are unable to see any other viewpoint. In fact, they often appear to arrogantly assert that there is no other viewpoint. Perhaps... Read more →

Pills Are Not Magic. You Are.

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Greetings from the land of semi-retirement. It has been just over a year since I left my primary practice--fully intending to continue patient care in another setting. But fate intervened in the form of a local dance contest and shifted my focus to pursuit of a lifelong dream of becoming a dancer. If not now...when??? Since that fateful moment, I have trained endless hours and have competed in three world salsa competitions (not very successfully!). I... Read more →

Exercise A lot

by Barbara Berkeley, MD This post is not for everyone. It is for those of you who are fully capable of exercising or of regaining your ability exercise strenuously. If you fit this description or think you might, read on. There is as much confusing information about how much to exercise as there is about how many grams of sugar, fat and protein one should consume every day. Let me make it simple: where exercise is concerned there is just... Read more →

Has Weight Loss Jumped the Shark?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Hello again to you dear readers and hello as well to those who are new to this blog. I've been on a sabbatical for the past year and now I'm finding that I want to write again....so I'm back. Despite my silence on these pages, I have still been reading and observing. There is not much new in the weight loss world: no magic pills, no easy solutions. Weight gain and weight regain remain vexing problems... Read more →

Do It!

by Barbara Berkeley, MD It has been a long time since I blogged here. I hope you are still out there working on staying healthy and finding your own way to reach your goals. I know how frustrating it can be and I know you sometimes wonder if it's all worth it. Let me assure you that it is. Things in my life have changed. In November, I became a grandmother for the first time and in December I decided... Read more →

Answering Your Questions

by Barbara Berkeley, MD I occasionally receive questions by email or through this blog. Recently, reader Dalon Clance submitted the following in response to the blog called "The Magic Pill": "I want to ask one thing. You state to eat a low carb diet for weight maintenance? I have also read the studies of Professor Hill from the University of Colorado and co-founder of the NWCR. He states that most of the people on the registry eat a low fat... Read more →

The Magic Pill

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Imagine I had a magic pill. And imagine I told every overweight person in America that this pill could keep each one of them at the lowest weight he or she could achieve. All each had to do was diet down to that low weight and this wondrous little pill would prevent regain forever. I believe that if I could promise such a pill, pretty much every overweight person would be able to achieve a very... Read more →

Walk, Stretch or Dance? Dancing May Be Best for the Brain - The New York Times

Moving and socializing appears to perk up the aging brain. So for the new study, which was published this month in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, researchers from the University of Illinois in Urbana and other schools decided to look at the effects of several different types of exercise on the wiring and the function of older people’s brains. They began by recruiting 174 healthy people in their 60s and 70s with no signs of cognitive impairment. Most were sedentary, although... Read more →

Simplify Your Life: A philosophy that should be applied to weight loss

by Barbara Berkeley, MD (Originally posted on RTR as "Simple Life, Simple Body", 2015) I was intrigued by David Brooks’ column in the New York Times recently. It speaks to a renewed interest in an old idea: simplifying life. Living in a less complicated way is not a new concept (think Walden Pond), but it has gained a greater magnetism in the setting of the hugely complex and acquisitive world in which we now find ourselves. I personally have enjoyed... Read more →