Archive for August, 2007

For Your Well Being: Behind the Scenes of The Biggest Loser

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Aug 23, 2007, Vol. V Issue 17

Dear Friends,

As I shared in our last issue, I’m taking this lapse in summertime meetings to feature some speakers I’ve been adding to our website. As a result of escalating obesity and diabetes numbers, I’ve been scouting experts for those of you holding events to educate and inspire people about diabetes management, prevention and heart health – both for your community and health professionals. Today, we’re featuring Michael Dansinger, MD, nutrition expert for “The Biggest Loser” television show on NBC.

Of all the reality shows, my husband and I enjoy this one the most, primarily because rather than being spiteful and competitive, the contestants are supportive and appear to build strong relationships. Nonetheless, the weight loss is amazing and anyone might question it. So what’s behind it – why and how and is it realistic?

Get the inside scoop right here from Dr. Dansinger.

Michael Dansinger, MD
Behind the Scenes of The Biggest Loser

“Through rigorous adherence to a healthy eating strategy and an intensive exercise regimen, ‘The Biggest Loser’ show participants routinely reverse their severe obesity within months,” says Dr. Dansinger. He believes that this NBC prime-time reality television show, now in its 4th season, has inspired a nation to change for the better.

“Viewers are treated to a weekly reminder that lifestyle change is potent medicine,” he says, “and as a nation watches the determined participants go from seriously obese, to normal, and then even become muscular, one often feels renewed hope that America will inevitably reverse the escalating obesity crisis.”

Michael Dansinger, MD, an internationally recognized authority on dietary and lifestyle counseling for weight loss and prevention of obesity-related medical problems, is the weight loss and nutrition advisor for NBC’s hit prime time series “The Biggest Loser,” and a contributor to the best selling book series based on the show.

Dr. Dansinger holds multiple academic positions. He is the Clinical Nutrition and Obesity Editor for WebMD’s academic journal (MedGenMed), an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, a scientist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrition Research Center, and a medical staff member of the Division of Endocrinology at Tufts-New England Medical Center.

Speaking of his experience with “The Biggest Loser,” he would be the first to tell you that people in the show are in a fantasy — an unrealistic environment where everything is optimized for weight loss. “Everything from working with a trainer to having absolutely nothing else to do makes it possible for contestants to completely indulge themselves in their diet and exercise routines,” he said.

He said that 50 to 60 percent of their weight loss success comes from dietary change. Whereas on average before the filming begins, they’ve been consuming around 3000 calories a day, once the show begins, they consume about 1500 calories a day. In reality, few people are really in a position to cut their calories by 1500 a day. He also says there’s nothing controversial about the diet, and the contestants are not given pills or any other shortcuts.

The other 40 to 50 percent of weight loss comes from the three hours of exercise the contestants do every day — an hour of strength training and two hours of cardio training. That helps them burn an additional 1,200 to 1,500 calories, Dansinger says. “That would be hard to do by yourself in real life, but on the show it’s easy to do,” he says. “When people are put in that kind of environment, when you pull out all the barriers to weight loss, that’s when the weight loss can come very quickly.”

And what took him out of a primary care practice and brought him into research and the limelight of a television realilty show? It was a joke, he said, actually, from a patient. He had been an excellent primary care doctor, well-liked by his patients, yet the time pressure of having to diagnose and treat up to 30 patients per day in community medical practice seemed unfair to him.

As a patient started to tell him a joke, he realized that there were several patients waiting to be seen. He recalls feelings of frustration and concern about having to choose between making the next patients wait even longer, or telling the current patient there was no time for a short joke. It was symbolic to him of the pressure that community physicians face daily in health care systems that leave little time for letting patients and their care providers get to know one another. That same day he recognized that he needed to help patients in a very different way. Within a year he transitioned away from community medicine to become a student again, in a career shift that would leave him nearly penniless, with no guarantee of success or happiness. With unwavering faith in his vision and his ideals, he persevered until he found his life’s calling. He believes the nation’s top health crisis is the escalating obesity, and its offspring, the diabetes epidemic, and his passion is finding ways to help reverse the devastation.

Clinical research remains his primary focus. He was awarded a 5-year research grant (2005-2010) from the National Institutes of Health to study the effectiveness of the recently updated USDA Food Pyramid. He is comparing it to an alternative Low Starch Pyramid for weight loss and reduction of heart disease risk factors in 200 overweight adults.

“The Biggest Loser Show,” the internationally recognized NBC prime-time reality weight loss series, recruited him in 2005. Following their blockbuster first season, he was called upon to help define “The Biggest Loser Diet” which was responsible, in part, for the astounding weight losses (average 100 pounds) routinely seen on the show. This diet, featuring a “4-3-2-1” pyramid, is a centerpiece of the best-selling book series based on the show.

He has been interviewed about his weight loss experience on the Today show, CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, CBS Radio, BBC Radio, Canadian Public Radio, Italian Public Television, Oprah magazine, Time magazine, Consumer Reports, USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and appears in Who’s Who in Medicine and Science.

He is trained as both a physician and scientist, and loves sharing his passion about these topics using humorous slides and stories to illustrate his presentations. Here is more information about two of his programs.

“Beating Obesity: Mission Impossible?” was created for the general public and healthcare professionals. In this one, he starts with a laugh-out-loud introduction acknowledging our love/hate relationship with unhealthy food. Dr. Dansinger discusses how and why the societal epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and related health problems have reached such desperate proportions. Can we reverse the trends? Dr. Dansinger provides some of the optimism and insight necessary for our society to conquer this “mission impossible,” and teaches the audience how individuals can rapidly reverse or prevent obesity and diabetes. Based on his inspirational work with NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” and his own Diabetes Reversal Clinic, he shares his principles of “strategic eating” and “accelerated weight loss” and demonstrates how some individuals on the show lose up to 100 pounds in 3 months, or even 200 pounds in under a year.

He also offers a program designed specifically for healthcare professionals. Primary care providers typically feel beaten down by obesity-related medical problems, especially type 2 diabetes. While most clinicians agree that lifestyle change can be potent medicine in principle, many have found it impractical, ineffective, or downright hypocritical to preach lifestyle change in today’s clinical environment. In his presentation, “Reversing Diabetes in Primary Care,” Dr. Dansinger provides an engaging and informative discussion of the underlying causes of society’s obesity and diabetes epidemics, the role the medical establishment should play in prevention, and what primary care practices can do to reduce type 2 diabetes in their patient population. He discusses principles of “accelerated weight loss” under idealized conditions, provides dramatic reminders about the power of lifestyle change, and motivates providers to learn to harness that power for use in the clinic. He details the techniques he uses in his own Diabetes Reversal Clinic to identify patients amenable to lifestyle change, and explains how to coach motivated patients to achieve diabetes remission or substantial medication reduction.

Please call me at 503-699-5031 or visit our website to book Dr. Michael Dansinger.

 

A Grateful Return

Home again. I didn’t take it for granted this time. We had a fantastic week of great weather, sunsets, campfires, star-gazing, wildlife, and fresh seafood along the coastal bays and rainforests of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

We did a little kayaking, a little sightseeing, some reading, lots of relaxing and a little traveling. We just took each day and did whatever appealed to us for that day. I even resisted the waitress’ invitation to use their free internet service when we stopped for breakfast somewhere in what I thought was a wilderness governed by the Quinalt Indian Nation. It was truly a vacation week of well being.

Then, within 100 miles of home, in a downpour, we suddenly came upon a pile-up accident on the freeway. We were headed right for it – I was bracing for the impact — when my husband saw an opening to the left and with razor quick skill, drove us through it. It was so close, my adrenaline went into overdrive. I am ever so grateful to be able to resume my life, rather than spend it dealing with the aftermath of an accident. I’m appreciating every routine day — a bonus from the unexpected ending to a perfectly peaceful and enjoyable vacation.

Until next time, be good to yourself for your good health and those you love.

Yours truly in good health,
Barbara

PLEASE NOTE: The information shared in this e-news is designed to help you make informed decisions about speakers and the programs they offer. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment prescribed by a doctor. If you suspect you have a medical problem, seek competent medical help.

 

About Our Services

You’ll find many of our speakers on our website, SpeakWellBeing.com.
or please call anytime and let us assist you.

The Speak Well Being Group specializes in providing exceptional speakers for health, wellness and women’s events. Because we’ve worked with so many hospitals and healthcare groups around the country, we speak your language. When you work with us, you’ll come back for more “How are we going to top that?” speakers.

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated! Write to us at barbara@speakwellbeing.com

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For Your Well Being: Spotlight on Diabetes

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

Aug 9, 2007, Vol. V Issue 16

Dear Friends,

Summer is a busy time for those of you still planning fall events and going into planning for 2008. Yet it’s a slow time for actual events. So, in the next few issues, I thought I’d take this opportunity to highlight a few speakers we’ve added to our website. Due to increasing interest and demand, we’re expanding our diabetes, heart health, nutrition and cancer event speakers, along with my favorite category of women’s health/humorous motivational speakers. Also, I have a huge backlog of more speakers I’m getting ready to add, so please give us a call or email if you’re looking for something or someone and don’t see it on our website. We just may have the answer and haven’t posted it yet. As always, I don’t post a speaker until I’ve checked them out thoroughly, and preferably, experienced them personally. I’m really picky, because I know you are, too.

Meantime, it’s time for a nature break.  I’m off to the woods next week for vacation!

 

Neal Barnard, MD:

Reversing Diabetes

It’s no secret. Diabetes is a life-threatening disease reaching epidemic levels around the world. More than 20 million Americans have type 2 diabetes; worldwide about 200 million people suffer from it. And, in recent years, because of obesity and terrible eating habits, a surprising number of our nation’s children are being diagnosed with it – although, up until now, it has always been seen as an adult disease.

A diagnoses of type 2 diabetes is often a grim precursor to heart disease, kidney failure, stroke, nervous system damage and other life-threatening complications. This risk of premature death among people with diabetes is about twice that of people without the disease.

Nutrition researcher Neal Barnard, MD, says it doesn’t have to be that way. In his book, Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, based on his recently published research, he explains that many of the people suffering from diabetes could dramatically improve their condition, not just manage it as most treatment programs aim to. The book, published in January 2007 by Rodale, is based on clinical research Dr. Barnard conducted with George Washington University and the University of Toronto. That study, published in the August 2006 issue of “Diabetes Care,” was funded by The National Institutes of Health.

“Many people who have diabetes assume it is something that they just have to live with, a serious problem that will inevitably get worse,” Dr. Barnard says. “My book describes a completely new approach to treating diabetes – one that focuses on reversing the disease, rather than just managing it. The program is based on a simple set of diet changes – a delicious low-fat vegan diet that focuses on vegetables, legumes, grains, and fruits and omits animal products and added vegetable oils. It also favors foods with a low-glycemic index, such as pasta, that have less effect on blood sugar. Unlike other diets, this program doesn’t demand that the individual limit carbs, count calories, or stick to small portions. In fact, patients can eat as much as they want.”

Now this may seem like unlikely advice from a man whose grandfather was a cattle rancher. “I was raised in North Dakota on daily dinners of roast beef, baked potato and corn,” he says. It was an experience in the year before he took off for medical school that set him on the path to vegetarianism.

“I worked as an assistant in a morgue. One day I had to prepare a cadaver for examination. It was a heart attack victim. I cut in and removed a section of ribs. The pathologist opened the heart and showed me the arteries clogged with fatty deposits. At the end, I had to put the ribs back into his chest and sew everything closed. Later that day I went to the cafeteria and they were serving ribs for lunch. They were so similar to the human ribs that I couldn’t eat them. I didn’t become a vegetarian that day, but it did have an effect.

“Once I founded the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), I had the opportunity to begin conducting clinical research studies, looking at how the right food can help reverse different health problems. Diabetes is one of the diseases that is clearly affected by lifestyle. And I have a special interest in diabetes because my father Donald M. Barnard, MD, was the diabetes expert in his Midwest community.”

Interestingly, the researchers were able to establish that a low-fat vegan diet works before they figured out why it works. When they looked around the world, they observed that populations with really low rates of diabetes were not following anything like a diabetes diet as we think of it – low in carbohydrates and sugars, usually focused on cutting calories and losing weight. They noticed that in rural Japan, for instance, there’s very little diabetes, and they eat rice all day — huge amounts of carbohydrates. “That suggested to me many years ago that carbohydrates don’t cause diabetes, and in fact, a low-carbohydrate diet is probably not the answer,” Dr. Barnard says.

“Our research has confirmed that a vegan diet is very good for people with diabetes because it brings blood sugars down, it brings cholesterol down, it brings blood pressure down and it brings weight down.” He also points out that people don’t die from diabetes. They die from the damage it causes to blood vessels of the heart, as well as the blood vessels of the eyes and kidneys.

The diet works on a cellular level. When someone has diabetes, insulin (the hormone produced in the pancreas) has a difficult time moving sugar out of the bloodstream and into that person’s cells. That’s because tiny amounts of fat in the person’s cells prevent the insulin from “opening” the cell membrane, or what can essentially be thought of as a lock. Instead, these bits of fat – which build up when a person eats a high-fat diet – clog up the cell and the insulin can’t do its job. With the low-fat vegan diet, however, individuals can essentially alter what goes in their cells. By eliminating most fat from their diet, that person is basically cleaning up his or her cells, which allows the insulin to move the glucose into the cells where it belongs.

So, the sixty-four thousand dollar question is, “Isn’t it hard to get people to make such a drastic change from our American diet?”

“It’s counterintuitive, I know, but we’ve found in all our research that participants on the vegan arm of any given study have an easier time sticking with their dietary changes than those following other diets,” Dr. Barnard says. “One reason is that they usually have better, faster results so they are encouraged to keep going. Another big reason is that they have fewer limitations to deal with. They don’t have to count calories, limit their carbohydrates or stick with smaller portions than they want. People can eat as much as they want, including plenty of carbohydrates such as pasta and dark bread.

“There’s a special diet trick that our research participants have found particularly helpful – simply try our guidelines for three weeks. This is not the time to stick your toe into the swimming pool; it’s time to jump in. For one, you get fast results. Secondly, a diet change really is like getting into a swimming pool. If you ease your way into the water inch by inch, it is a painful process. But if you plunge in, very soon you see that the water feels fine. You’ll also find that your taste buds have a memory of about three weeks, and jumping into the diet change allows them to rapidly adjust.”

Dr. Barnard is the author of many previous books on diet and health, including Food for Life, Foods that Fight Pain, and Breaking the Food Seduction. He is enthusiastic and passionate about sharing this information. Please contact me Barbara@speakwellbeing.com if you’d like to bring Dr. Barnard to your community.

 

Ocean, Forest, Mountains, Here We Come!

So far this summer, airplanes have taken us to a wedding in Reno, my husband’s college reunion in Princeton, New Jersey, and just me to the National Wellness Conference in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

I’m overdue for some nature time to feed my soul. That’s my way of telling you our office will be closed next week, Aug. 13 – 17, while my husband and I take off to play here in the Northwest. We’re headed, with our camping gear, kayaks and dog, to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We went there a few years ago but left knowing we’d come back because there was so much to see and do. This time we’re routing ourselves in the opposite direction of our last trip and starting with the rain forest in the southwest corner and traveling up along the Pacific Coast toward the northeast corner of this vast and varied park. I’m looking forward to being away from the computer and drinking in the scenery.

Until next time, take a nature break for yourself  — for your good health and those you love.

Yours truly in good health,
Barbara

PLEASE NOTE: The information shared in this e-news is designed to help you make informed decisions about speakers and the programs they offer. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment prescribed by a doctor. If you suspect you have a medical problem, seek competent medical help.

 

About Our Services

You’ll find many of our speakers on our website, SpeakWellBeing.com.
or please call anytime and let us assist you.

The Speak Well Being Group specializes in providing exceptional speakers for health, wellness and women’s events. Because we’ve worked with so many hospitals and healthcare groups around the country, we speak your language. When you work with us, you’ll come back for more “How are we going to top that?” speakers.

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated! Write to us at barbara@speakwellbeing.com

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