About the author
Doc Russ
Dr. Russ L'HommeDieu ( lohm-DEW ) is a doctor of physical therapy with more than 35 years in clinical practice, a speaker, and the author of this program. He also lost more than 200 pounds — and, unlike most people who lose weight, he kept it off.
That last part is the whole reason this course exists. Doc Russ is blunt about the fact that he already knew what to eat long before he lost the weight. Knowing was never the problem. What changed was the set of systems running underneath the knowing — the beliefs, the vision, the commitments, and the habits that quietly decide what a person actually does at nine o'clock at night.
So this is not a diet, and he is not going to hand you a meal plan. The fifteen sessions walk through the same rebuild he did on himself, in the same order, with the written work that made it stick.
These sessions did not start as a website. After losing the weight he became a Wellcoach®-certified coach and volunteered as a presenter for the Department of Veterans Affairs MOVE! weight management program. Those lectures became an audio program, and that audio program is what you are listening to here — which is why it sounds like a man talking to a room rather than a script being read.
His wider work
Weight loss is one thread in a much longer career. He began practising in 1990, earned his Doctor of Physical Therapy in 2007, and has worked in nearly every clinical setting there is — acute care, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing, home health, outpatient orthopedics, and pediatrics. He is finishing a doctorate in healthcare education and leadership, researching how compassion training reduces burnout among healthcare workers.
He also runs a rehabilitation staffing company, consults in health technology, and co-writes children's books with his wife Karen about their three-legged therapy dog, Daisy. His own site collects all of it.
His story
The short version of how a 200-pound loss turned into something he now teaches.
12 things he learned kayaking around Long Island
This is not a side project — it is the course. Session 8 tells the story of the shark that circled his kayak off Montauk, and uses it to explain why engagement means going forward when you are afraid rather than waiting to stop being afraid. This talk is the long version of that trip.
The workbook
Lose Weight For Good! Re-train Your Brain and NEVER Have To Diet Again! is the printed companion to these sessions. Every written exercise on this site comes from it, and it has room to do the work by hand if you prefer paper.
Start the program
The fifteen sessions are the course itself. If you would rather warm up first, the ABCs are twenty-six short pieces you can listen to in any order.