Regenerize goes online to help clients lose weight

PONDERAY — It's more than numbers on a scale.

It is, said Tawni and Rio Peterson, about living your best, healthiest life.

That philosophy led the mother and son to launch Regenerize, a telehealth company that offers personalized, integrative care for weight loss, mental health, and more. The company, founded about 2 1/2 years ago, has patients in 11 states, including Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

"Idaho is such a rural state in general and we always had the idea that whatever we did next, we wanted to do it via telehealth," Rio Peterson said. "We wanted it to be virtual, we wanted to connect for appointments just (like this call) and medication is shipped directly from the pharmacy to their door."

By creating a telehealth practice, Tawni Peterson said location is no longer an issue for patients and opens the door to high-quality health care for everyone.

"The majority of our patients are rural because of access to health care and word spreads very quickly, 'They can help you,'" she said. "I love practicing medicine and I really love helping people with weight loss and I just love to help people become healthy."

Tawni Peterson began her career as a nurse practitioner at a rural health facility in central Idaho, and clearly remembers her first patient, someone who struggled with weight issues. During their conversation, the man balked at taking medication because he didn't want to rely on them forever and said he didn't even know where to start.

After the consultation, Peterson went to her boss at the time and told her they needed to start a weight loss program at the clinic. What followed was an ongoing conversation, seminars and training that ended in the creation of a weight loss program. It became, she said, her passion.

At Regenerize, Tawni Peterson's focus is on weight loss, hormone optimization and skin care, while Rio Peterson specializes in psychiatric and mental health. The combination results in a patient-centered approach to medical care and mental health services.

Among the newest tools available to the practice — and to patients — are GLP-1 drugs, or semaglutides.

The pair said that their research has shown the GLP-1 drugs to be safe and effective, in large part because of the research and study they put into them before deciding to prescribe them. That, added to the support and structure, as well as protocols built into the program to address potential risks, means that side effects seen in other programs aren't seen as much with their protocol, the Petersons said.

The pair said they worked to address potential problems and put the focus on overall health, not necessarily on weight loss. 

"It's about overall health," Rio Peterson said. "It's not just about weight loss. It's not an aesthetic thing. It's about longevity and feeling good over the course of your lifespan."

The practice combines traditional medical techniques with alternative therapies, putting the focus on clients as individuals, allowing them to get to the root cause of that person's weight gain so they can live their healthiest life. Each client completes a survey and undergoes bloodwork, among other things, to determine correct dosage, and weight loss goals. Those measures are constantly reviewed and adjusted to keep the dosage to what that individual patient needs. the Petersons said.

Weight loss is deliberately kept at roughly two pounds a week to ensure patients arrive at their goal in a healthy manner.

"Our job is not to make you skinny fat," Tawni Peterson said. "Our job is to help you arrive at a healthy weight with muscle."

It boils down to putting the focus on health and not on weight loss. That means ensuring proper nutrition and treating people as individuals instead of putting the focus on numbers on a scale, Rio Peterson said.

The old way of weight loss involved dietary restrictions such as low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods, and good old-fashioned exercise. While still key components of a healthy lifestyle, modern weight loss drugs can give those struggling to lose weight a tool to get the upper hand.

After a death in the family, the mother and son decided to move to North Idaho from where they were living in southcentral Idaho. The pair took a sabbatical during the pandemic, spending the next year planning what they wanted to do next. 

"The only thing that kept coming back to me is weight loss," she said. "That's my passion. That's what I love."

At the same time, patients kept contacting her, wanting to know more about the semaglutides. Peterson began studying the GLP-1 drugs and their use in weight loss. She wanted to make sure the drugs were safe, how they could be used safely, and the long-term impacts. Along with her son, the pair began building a program, launching Regenerize about two and a half years ago.

"It took off at a speed I didn't expect," Tawni Peterson said.

Since its founding, Regenerize has seen patients complete the program and have successfully kept the weight off. Key to that is a measured tapering off from the drugs to minimize the hunger they otherwise feel if they immediately stop taking the GLP-1 drugs, and the microdoses of an appetite suppressant on an intermittent basis once patients reach the maintenance phase of their weight loss journey.

"By the time they end the program, they're not hungry," Tawni Peterson said. "They're like, 'I'm doing this. I can do this.'"

As part of that protocol, hormone replacement therapy and peptide therapy are additional tools that can be incorporated into patients' individualized regimes.

"We really want to understand their nutritional foundation," Tawni Peterson said. "Do they garden? Do they cook? Do they grocery shop? You know, what's their style of cooking? If a patient doesn't understand nutrition, you can start them on the GLP-1  but they'll never be successful."

Add in those components, through an integrative medicine approach, and patients see better health, weight loss and better nutrition. 

And that, the pair said, is the goal.

Information: Regenerize, regenerize.me or 208-606-0626

    Rio Peterson