Welcome to Doctors and Dietitians
Do you want to lose weight with a safe and healthy approach? Would you like to involve your doctor in the process? Recent studies show that working with a dietitian via phone, chat, email, or a forum, keeps you on track and moving forward. Why don't you get started now..........
•Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant women, that’s about 135,000 cases in the USA each year.
•Gestational diabetes occurs more frequently among African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, and American Indians, and among obese women and those with a family history.
•Immediately after pregnancy, 5% to 10% of women with gestational diabetes are found to have diabetes, usually type 2.
•Women who have had gestational diabetes have a 40% to 60% chance of developing diabetes in the next five to 10 years.
•Women who have gestational diabetes are at higher risk for obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, metabolic syndrome and clogged blood vessels.
•Babies of women who have had gestational diabetes are at a higher risk of developing diabetes during their lives.
Sources: March of Dimes, American Diabetes Association (ADA), Diabetes Care, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC), endocrinologist Sue Kirkman (ADA), The American College of Obstetriciansand Gynecologists. (ACOG).
Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, LDN
Eating beans can help you slim down, fight heart disease and high blood pressure, and live longer. Who Knew?
Fact No. 1: Eat Beans and Slim Down
At mealtime, fiber-rich beans can help curb your appetite by helping you feel fuller sooner so you’ll eat less. Beans can also replace higher calorie meats and cheeses in entrees. Trimming calories daily can help trim your waistline.
Fact No. 2: Eat Beans to Help Fight Heart Disease and High Blood Pressure
A ½ cup of cooked beans provides 10% or more of the Daily Value for potassium and magnesium, nutrients that can help lower blood pressure. The soluble fiber in beans can help lower the “bad” LDL cholesterol in the body. Both high blood pressure and blood cholesterol increase the risk of heart disease – the number one cause of death of Americans. It’s no wonder that the Dietary Guidelines recommend that Americans enjoy 3 cups of legumes, such as beans, weekly.
Fact No. 3: Eat Beans as Part of a Healthy Diet to Live Healthier and Longer
Research suggests that folks that follow a Mediterranean-style diet, which is rich in plant foods including legumes (dried beans and peas) actually live longer. Another study of older adults showed that consuming approximately 1/8 cup of legumes daily was associated with about a 7 percent reduction in the risk of dying.
Add more beans to your diet by:
- Tossing beans with pasta and vegetables.
- Adding beans to tomato-based soups.
- Reducing the meat and cheeses in entrees and adding MORE beans for a hearty meal
- Adding beans and vegetables to comfort foods such as Mac & Cheese.
Enjoy! Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, LDN
Source: RDs Weigh In
Hello,
I have been dieting and exercising for about 4 months and I’ve lost 15 lbs. I am 30 yrs old, 5′8″ and 162 lbs. In the last 3 weeks I have been exercising 6 days a week for about 30 minutes a day, either with boot camp-type interval training or an elliptical machine. I’m eating about 1200-1350 calories a day. The past 3 weeks my weight loss has slowed and I even gained a pound the first day of my period. What would cause me to gain weight?
I’ve had a weight problem since I was 13 or so and my dream is to be 140-145. I have never really had success on diets until recently. I’ve been tracking my calories and I usually eat 3 meals about 350-400 calories and a 100-200 calorie snack each day. Lately I’ve been really hungry in between meals. My mom thinks I’m not eating enough. I don’t want to eat too many calories though. I am so frustrated that I feel like giving up but I know I can’t do that. –Carrie E.
Dear Carrie,
YAY for you for not considering giving up as an option 
I have some very clear answers for you to consider and I think you’ll be happy to have some direction.
First of all for your height/weight/age and recent activity level you are burning over 2000 calories a day. Your calorie intake is so low that your body is now compensating to “save yourself” (as if you were a starving caveman!) You started out losing weight very quickly on this low calorie diet, but your body doesn’t want you to waste away so it’s slowing its metabolism. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by bringing your calorie level up to 1600-1800 level (Mom is right, again) your body will feel safe enough to raise the metabolism again and you will be able to lose weight slowly and in a healthy way, and not feel hungry so often.
Second, your weight reflects simply your weight, and not your body composition. Working out heavily with weights can increase the water weight in your muscle, just as premenstrually we often retain more water and the scale says “You weigh more”. The scale would say “You weigh more” if you were holding a 16 oz bottle of water in your hand…it wouldn’t say “hey, put down that pound of water–that doesn’t count!” It doesn’t know why you weigh this much. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve gained a pound or two of muscle after weeks of boot camp either. So you really can’t be putting all your measurements of success on the number the scale tells you.
My advice is to keep up the exercises you enjoy doing and think about how good you feel when this is a regular part of your life. If you are exercising only to lose weight it is likely you will eventually resent “having to do the exercise” and you’ll stop. If you are exercising because you like it and feel good, you’ll keep going for years! I would suggest continuing your healthy meal plan but increasing the calories to 400-500 per meal and add another snack as well (either between meals or evening) for a total of 1400 mimimum calories to 1900 maximum.
Taking the healthy eating and exercise routines and making these your priority in the long run–instead of how many pounds a week you lose–will serve you best. Keep a chart of your weight a few times a week and look back on it over several months: See that you are 10 pounds lighter than you used to be–not that you haven’t lost a pound this week. In the overall time you learn to eat healthier, even if you lose 2 pounds a month you’ll have reached your goal in a year! I know you probably want it faster than that, but it’ll be easier to live your life if you are making new habits instead of going on a diet to lose weight. The results will be long term instead of “I lost 2 pounds and then got too hungry and stopped the diet” or “I lost 2 pounds and then got sick of exercising”. The weight will be off once and for all and you’ll never have to go on a diet again!
Finally, think about how your thoughts influence your weight and if your beliefs are interfering with your process. If foremost in your mind you keep hearing “I’ve always had a weight problem” and “I’ve never been successful with diets” then you keep believing this. Start sending yourself a new message and repeat it often (and I mean 50 times a day) during the day. Something that resonates with you like “I am developing life-long healthy habits so I can live in my dream body for life”. Telling yourself this new message will eventually turn into a new belief and this will in turn become the way you view yourself and the way you live.
Enjoy your new lifestyle with healthy eating habits and invigorating exercise and give your mind and body time to form into the best you that you can be in the years to come!
Please let me know if you have any more questions and keep me posted on how it’s going!
Posted by LAURIE BEEBE
A Dietitian’s View
Nutrition and Fitness Information for the Misinformed
Posted by Lisa at June 30, 2009 07:16 AM
Just because a food product says “probiotic” doesn’t mean it’s a probiotic. Even more aggravating, manufacturers often leave important information off the label, such as whether the product contains live organisms or the full name of the bacterial strain. Some advice:
Watch the dates: The organisms can die off while the product is sitting on the shelf. The best way to ensure it has an effective number of live bacteria is to look at the “best by” or expiration date.
Get enough microbes. Easier said than done. There is no single dosage for probiotics; studies have documented health benefits for products ranging from 50 million to more than 1 trillion colony-forming units (the measure of live microbes) per day. The amount you need is the amount that the study on your product showed was effective. There is a clinical study, right–
Scour yogurt labels. Look for yogurt products with “live and active cultures” and avoid the ones that say “made with active cultures.” Those may have been heat-treated after fermentation, which kills the bacteria. Also, Acidophilus and Bifidobacteria are less sensitive to stomach acid and more likely to make it into the colon alive than other names you might see on the label, such as Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilis.
Scour yogurt labels, Part II. Remember that even “live, active cultures” aren’t necessarily probiotics, meaning they may not have been tested for health benefits.
Speak the lingo. A probiotic is defined by its genus (e.g. Lactobacillus), species (e.g. rhamnosus) and strain (a series of letters or numbers). “Products that list the genus and species and also the strain tend to have inherently better quality control and products,” said probiotics expert Gary Huffnagle.
Watch for too-perfect names. Dannon calls its bacterial strains Bifidus Regularis (in Activia) and L. casei Defensis (in DanActive)—for marketing purposes. These are made-up, consumer-friendly, trademarked names.
