Today I had a totally un-American idea!  This will be a tough one to swallow - LITERALLY!  My wife often says I am such a "romantic" when I take her out to fine restaurants such as Hy-Vee Chinese!  Even though she is joking, this IS one of our favorite places to eat.  The food is good, and best of all, it's pretty inexpensive.  Recently, however, I had a thought when I was ordering my food - I wanted to tell the young man dishing up my Black Pepper Chicken and Sweet & Sour Chicken - "Please, not so much on my plate...."

This calorie thing is hard!  I had no idea when I started to learn how to eat again (forgetting all that I was taught in kindergarten about cleaning your plate and going back for seconds), that this would be so hard.  My wife and I talk about how much we use to eat and we are amazed that we hadn't gained more weight than we did.  Take today for instance, we were out shopping and we stopped at Bruegger's Bagels for lunch.  I thought I was going to be good.  According to my LoseIt.com calorie budget, I have a budget of 1,619 calories for today - PLENTY, RIGHT?  So I ordered what I thought was going to be a good (that is low calorie) lunch.  I ordered:

I've been holding out for a long time on this one, but I think it is time.  I am now an official TWIT!  Dr. Beer is on Twitter: @drbradleybeer

We will hopefully be using Twitter to keep patients informed of new medical information and health updates.  

I'm still fighting off FaceBook!  

I've joined the 25 pound club, I am down 25 pounds from Jan 6th, 2011.  Had to buy new pants last week - what a bummer!   One thing that I have learned as a part of this "learning how to eat", it is extremely important to track every calorie you eat.  I use a website to do this: LoseIt.com

LoseIt.com is FREE, EASY, and IT WORKS.  I would and have recommended it to several patients.  

COMING SOON: "I'm a Loser" T-shirts.  Let me know if you'd be interested on the poll on the home page.

I've decided that everything you learned in kindergarten about eating was WRONG!  You were told to "clean your plate!"  "Go back for seconds!"  "You need to eat that, there are starving kids in Ethiopia!"  When we go to the corner fast food joint we are bombarded with "Value Meals", super-size this, super-size that, etc.  No wonder there is an obesity epidemic.  Well, it's time to learn how to eat.  How to eat the right way.  Eating 101...

So you're ready to start shedding the pounds?  You're ready to hear about the secret to losing the flab.  What is the secret?  Where is the magic pill?  What is the quick-fix?  You may be surprised regarding what I am going to say...

First of all, you'll need some tools...

2011 is the year where I start to practice what I preach - "Doctor heal thy self!".  Over the past few years I have steadily noted my weight increasing and my overall level of fitness decreasing.  As with everyone, a lot of this had to do with being busy at work, busy at home, kids, excuse, excuse, excuse...  So this year I have decided to get serious about the fight against the flab.  I have decided to go public with my weight loss and share my results, ideas, and obstacles on my blog.  I am hoping that this may help my patients with any weight problems they may be having, and perhaps I can take this a bit further and start to offer some new services to my patients.  

Welcome to my BLOG.  This is going to be an experiment for us to see how to utilize this for the benefit of our patients.  Bear with me, I have never written a BLOG before.  I have a couple of days off this week recovering from having 3 of my wisdom teeth removed, so I thought this would be a great time to start working on this.  I am hoping this will be a good place to share with you our office news, new medical information, and my general thoughts on several health topics.  Thank you for visiting and STAY TUNED!  

Fact About Dr. Beer: Did you know that Dr. Beer's hobby is photography?

Please Note: Dr. Beer will not be in the office on Feb 3rd, 4th, or 7th, 2011.  If you need to be seen on one of these days, please call (319) 365-7521, and one of my staff can assist you.