Weight Loss and Maintenance: My Way Works, Does Yours?

Dr. Shoemaker begins his weight loss program by asking, "Do you know exactly how the body makes fat?" Dr. Shoemaker leads you through the complex bhiochemistry of fat maintenance to show you how to lose weight and how to keep it off.

In Dr. Shoemaker's practice, the maintenance rate of weight loss after one year is over 70%. In contrast, simply exercising more and counting fat grams gives a maintenance rate of less than 1%.

Dr. Shoemaker outlines a simple, direct approach to weight loss. The biochemical basis for weight, cholesterol, nutrition, and insulin effects are the foundation for a lifestyle change that promotes health, normal, genetically controlled weight and successful maintenance.

Ritchie C. Shoemaker, M.D., a family physician from Pocomoke, Maryland, has a special interest in sports medicine and nutrition. Dr. Shoemaker is also a naturalist with a special interest in wetland ecology.

Dr. Shoemaker graduated magna cum laude from Duke University in 1973 with a B.S. in molecular biology and a minor in philosophy. While attending Duke Medical School, Dr. Shoemaker concentrated on public health studies and epidemiology. He also launched a journal for medical students -- First Contact -- that achieved national distribution during his term as editor.

After graduating from medical school in 1977, Dr. Shoemaker completed his medicine residency in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where he designed a rural health care system. His interests in rural primary care medicine led him to Pocomoke City, located at the extreme southern of Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Dr. Shoemaker has practiced in Pocomoke City since 1980. He and his friends have built award-winning nature trails in the region, along with both non-tidal wetland and tidal wetland gardens.

His wife JoAnn teaches kindergarten at the local public school. Daughter Sally trains and cares for her horses at the family home along the Pocomoke River, where her formative years have been enriched by science, photography, and music.