Many people experienced the benefits of weight management medications, only to find that all the pharmacies are out of them everywhere....

Have you ever been told that you should lose so much weight that it seemed too daunting to even try? Has a doctor ever told you that you...

There is a recent “news cycle” in weight loss medication. Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) was approved to treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus on May...

Preventive and routine care is care that helps prevent health problems or finds them before they become serious. Examples of common...

August is glorious in the Pacific Northwest! Many people enjoy travel and special events. It is hard to believe that Fall and Back to School and the season change is almost upon us. Typically, people get out of routines in the summer and try to get back into routines in the Fall. This includes health routines. At Rainier Medical, we find that many people gain some weight during the summer and would like to get back to their "Peak" before the holiday season comes around again.

Part of healthcare is preventative, or trying to keep people from getting sick, and another part is treatment once a person is sick or...

What is the link between depression and anxiety? If you are concerned about both, how do you address them both at the same time? Which came first? These are a few of the complex questions that many people face. Statistics show that about 43% of adults with depression have obesity (compared to all adults in America, of which 32% have obesity). Conversely, studies show that people with obesity have a 55% greater risk of developing depression. Thus, the relationship is said to b

Yesterday, it hit me once again; I failed my patients. In April 2020, faced with the start of the Covid pandemic, school closures, and...

Obesity is a medical disease characterized by a chronic metabolic dysregulation of energy in which there is a higher than normal weight set-point that is defended by a host of metabolic adaptations. Obesity is a worldwide problem that causes not only medical consequences but also may cause disturbances in psychosocial functioning. This may be due to weight bias and stigmatization in part or whole.

Very Low Calorie Diets using meal replacements have been well studied as a medical protocol for both non-surgical treatment of obesity and for the treatment or induction of remission of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. They have been shown to lead to new 15 to 20% weight loss with an excellent safety profile using medical screening, monitoring, and nutritionally fortified medical food formulas in studies such as this one .

For better or for worse, managing weight is a lifetime journey. Obesity Medicine is the specialty of diagnosing and managing the chronic...

People with the chronic condition of overweight/obesity who have lost a significant amount of weight benefit from longitudinal care and...

Congratulations! You have completed 9 weeks on a 12 week journey! You are three quarters of the way there! It is like mile 20 of a marathon, otherwise known as “The Wall“ in a marathon (so I have been told, since I have never run one). This when your legs feel like jello and you think there is no way your body can go farther. In weight loss, this is when you may feel like you are hitting a weight loss plateau. What is a plateau, and what should you do about it? Don’t despair,

Welcome! You have decided to change your health for the better and it is time to get started! You probably are feeling some excited anticipation but may also have some trepidation, uneasiness, or uncertainty. Some people feel like this is their last hope for losing weight, or like their health or life depends on losing weight. Whatever you are feeling, rest assured, it is normal, you are not alone, and I will guide you through this process and the follow up care. And, while i

Today is December 25th, the date on which Christmas is celebrated. Many of you are opening gifts this morning that may be wrapped in...

Top Ten Things to Keep in Mind As You Plan Your Holidays

Obesity is a chronic disease characterized by dysregulation of energy within an individual. There are several types of obesity, with many different underlying causes and changes in different individuals, with an almost unlimited combination of factors when you take all the different variables into account. It is not as simples as “calories in, calories out”, or “low-carb”, or “excess insulin”, although each of these things is not wrong, either. Science is finally devoting res

Did you know that physical fitness is so important to your health that the American College of Cardiology recommends that it gets measured annually at a preventive visit as a “vital sign?” Physical fitness has been shown to be linked not only to the risk of getting sick, but to the risk of dying once you get sick. Physical fitness is a different parameter than BMI. Some people erroneously assume that a person’s physical fitness level inversely correlates with their BMI, or

The most commonly used metric to define obesity is the body mass index (BMI). Fortunately, weight for height, without accounting for the...

Healthcare is made up of many decisions based on risk/benefit analyses. Many things go into each decision so there are many nuances and many different permutations to each decision. Whether to get a mammogram or not; and if so, how often? A colonoscopy or a stool card? A statin or not? A daily aspirin? Which vaccines? Which vitamins? Medication for bone density or stick with diet and exercise alone? One of these decisions that comes up a lot is whether or not to take a “stati