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it helped lower my cortisol 
levels, which led to me los-
ing weight,” Dobrusin said. 
During the six-month 
program, Dobrusin was 
able to lose about 1 pound 
a week, and, since the pro-
gram ended, she has been 
able to keep the weight off. 
“Dr. Lerner helped me 
reframe the way I looked at 
food, to stop being hungry 
all the time, and to devel-
op a schedule for when I 
ate. I started eating foods 
that filled me up and made 
me feel satisfied instead of 
snacking between meals. 
And, because of this, I was 

able to get to my goal weight 
and sustain it,” she said. 

WEIGHT LOSS 
THAT WORKS
Lerner, who holds member-
ship in Congregations Beth 
Shalom and Shaarey Zedek, 
wanted to help people like 
Dobrusin because she knew, 
firsthand, what it was like 
to be in their shoes. When 
she was 40, she had started 
a new practice and found 
herself under increasing 
pressure both at work and 
at home while taking care of 
her young children. Despite 
eating healthily and regularly 
exercising, she gained about 
50 pounds within five years.
“I would look at my diet 
and think, ‘I’m not doing 
anything wrong!’ It didn’t 
make sense why I was put-
ting on that kind of weight. 
So, I signed up for an inten-
sive weight loss coaching 
program with a doctor out 
of Wisconsin, geared solely 
toward women physicians in 
clinical practices. It was spe-
cific toward what I was going 
through — and it turned out 
that stress was a significant 
factor. When I started to bet-
ter manage the stress in my 
life, I ended up shedding the 
weight,” she said. 
Lerner had known what 
foods she was supposed to eat 
to be healthy, but it was her 
knowledge base about metab-
olism that was lacking. This 
program helped fill in the 
gaps, and it helped suppress 
her emotional cravings. And, 
10 years later, she’s been able 
to maintain those habits and 
her weight loss.
In her career as a family 
physician and obesity medi-
cine specialist, she has found 
that many of her patients 
were going through similar 
issues. They would tell her 
that, no matter what they ate, 

continued on page 51
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