Practice Makes Progress

A few years ago, the computer guy showed up at my office for the first time in a long while. Let’s call him Gene. Right away, I knew something had changed. I said, “Gene, how are you? You’re looking very well!” He responded with an uncharacteristic grin, and answered with a statement that all of us know, but few believe. He said, “Diets don’t work.” I sat up quick. Continue reading


The Glycemic Index

Many people have heard of the glycemic index (GI), but they are not exactly sure what it means, or how it works. A low glycemic index diet is thought to significantly lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease and even certain cancers. This is probably true, but not for the reasons people think. Continue reading



Be Here Now

“Be here now” is what Thich Nhat Hanh says. I think about that sentence a lot. It grounds me in the present and keeps me here, no matter what I’m doing, No matter when and where I’m doing it. Not there, not then, but here and now. For a long time I thought of “Be Here Now” as “be HERE now.” Sometimes “be here NOW.” But last week, for the first time, I heard myself think “BE here now.” Notice: Thich Nhat Hanh said BE here now, not DO here now. Continue reading





Chocolate Mousse

What follows is a true story. It really happened, and you can draw your own conclusions.

Just over 13 years ago, on a snowy evening in January 2003, my daughter and I went out and brought home the sweetest, gentlest, 8-week-old Labrador Retriever puppy. She was a chocolate lab, and so we named her Mousse. Mousse played ball; Mousse cuddled with the children; Mousse helped me weed the garden; Mousse stole food from the kitchen table when she thought no one was looking; Mousse hung out with the chickens and enjoyed visiting with our friends and neighbors, both human and canine. Mousse became family, and all was well. Continue reading


Reflections on Weight

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately: When we English speakers talk about our weight, we say “I weigh xxx pounds.” As if you have a say in the matter, and you could dial in what you want to weigh when you wake up in the morning. Not. We’re not machines — we’re dynamic creatures who are always adapting and responding to our environments. And what we weigh is a reflection of those environments, no matter how supportive or challenging.  Continue reading


Cholesterol: The good, the bad, the ugly

The first thing I’m going to say about cholesterol is that we don’t understand it well enough. On my first day of medical school back in the early 1990’s, Dr. Kirby, our Dean of Students, said that half of what we were about to learn over the next four years would turn out to be false. The problem was that no one knew which half! Here are some of the things I learned in medical school that have turned out to be false: Continue reading