We have read in recent blogs about physical activity and exercise training; today we are reading about their end result: cardiorespiratory fitness. Fitness is important because the more fit you are, the more likely you can survive an insult to your health. This has been shown with heart failure and cardiovascular disease and cancer. We have seen that with Covid, certain factors like male gender, blood type, obesity, and other underlying comorbid conditions are associated wit

Last week's blog was about an exercise prescription, which, for adults, is recommended to feature three components: resistance training,...

While much of the adult population has referred to the “Covid 19” weight gain, some experts have warned of much more sinister...

In my old practice, I used to spend most of my time writing prescriptions (many of which the patients did not want!). In my current practice, I am frequently stopping prescriptions (the cover photo is the medications one couple got to throw away after doing the Rainier Medical Program!), but one of my favorite prescriptions to write is an Exercise Prescription! Let’s look at those!

“Learning how to eat,” that is a goal that I sometimes hear. It is true, eating has gotten quite complicated. When did we forget how to...

While nutrition, medical factors, genetics and environment are the largest factors in determining your weight, a sedentary lifestyle has...

The most important part of the Rainier Medical program is: YOU. Each program is a carefully woven tapestry of an individual’s journey from where they are to where they want to be. It is a journey not just about food. Each program is personal and no two are the same, since no two people are the same. Following are four different Rainier Medical programs. Most people benefit from being on one of the programs most of the time, to take care of their health while taking care of ev

Have you ever heard a healthcare practitioner assume excess weight was simple to lose and the cause of all of a person's symptoms or healthcare conditions? Have you ever heard of that leading to someone avoiding going to the doctor? Have you ever heard of a person receiving disrespectful remarks from a healthcare practitioner that should know better and it leading to negative feelings about one's body that led to negative health related behaviors?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 54% increase in national sales of alcohol for the week ending March 21, 2020, compared with 1 year before; online sales increased 262% from 2019.1 Three weeks later, the World Health Organization warned that alcohol use during the pandemic may potentially exacerbate health concerns and risk-taking behaviors according to this article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Rainier Medical Program calls for abstinence f

Well-being is defined as the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy. Sounds simple, and yet with our highly developed frontal...

Currently, 42.5% of Americans have obesity, and, if current trends continue, that will increase to 50% by 2030, according to a 2019 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. On Friday, the FDA approved a new anti-obesity medication, Wegovy, which is being heralded as a “game changer” due to its average weight loss of 14.9% at 68 weeks. Obesity has received increased attention in the news due to the Covid Pandemic and the strong evidence that obesity worsened

“I want to learn how to eat and make longterm lifestyle change to keep the weight off once I lose it.” This is an important and...

The Covid Pandemic brought about many changes in how you visited your doctor, perhaps some of them were welcome, and some not so much....

Binge eating disorder (BED) is the most common eating disorder, thought to occur is approximately 2% of adult Americans, but the...

Summer is almost upon us! The Pacific Northwest at this time of year is a wonderful place to be! With graduations, weddings, BBQs,...

This Mother’s Day blog departs a little from the usual themes to tell you about the treatments and procedures that Rainier Medical offers...

Introduction Sleep is one of the missing links that can help explain a disconnect between “calories in, calories out” for a person. And,...

Last week, we talked about how the connection between obesity and low testosterone in men. This week, we will talk about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which have features of hormonal changes in women that have links to excess adiposity and obesity in some cases. PCOS is now the leading cause of infertility in women, and affects between 4-12% of childbearing women, so it has a very large impact. It can also lead to cancer of the uterus and cardiovascular disease, and Type 2 Dia

We have talked a lot about how overweight/obesity leads to Type 2 Diabetes, but there is another very important clinical manifestation of...

In medicine, we necessarily rely on making diagnoses which rely heavily upon objective data, laboratory values, normal values, and labels. Treatments are frequently prescribed based on these cutoff values, and patients and physicians alike rely on follow up laboratory values to assess the success of the treatments and assume future risk based on those values. But, what if those assumptions are wrong or incomplete? In medicine, there are examples of where, in hindsight, common