Tips for Diabetic Weight Loss

Diabetic weight loss is much more difficult than many people think. Losing weight when you are diabetic takes much more dedication and perseverance because you need to keep track of your blood sugar levels and insulin in addition to adapting to a new diet and exercise routine. Many diabetics are able to keep track of their blood sugar but are not able to properly regulate it when they are attempting to diet.

Before starting any diabetic weight loss regimen it is a good idea to talk to your doctor. Your doctor should be able to give you some guidance that will help you to be able to properly regulate your insulin. You need to make sure to eat foods that will help you maintain your blood sugar at healthy levels, and test these levels as you normally would. You do not want your blood sugar to spike or drop too quickly. The doctor will be able to give you some guidance that will help you be able to lose the weight that you want to lose while keeping your body as healthy as it can possibly be.

When dieting it is important to be conscientious about what you are eating. You should eat vegetables and fruits in moderation. It is important to make sure that the foods you are eating do not make your blood sugar levels spike. There are some foods that you can eat that will slowly digest and will allow you to maintain your levels while also being able to lose weight. Work with your doctor to develop a healthy balance of low-calorie, low-fat meals that will make sure you get the proper balance of nutrients and vitamins.

Exercise is also important when it comes to diabetic weight loss. Cardio is an especially important part of the exercise regime. You want to elevate your heart rate to a level that will help exercise this important muscle and burn fat. If you push yourself too hard there is a chance that you could pass out and become injured, so be cautious. If you notice that you are starting to feel overly light-headed while exercising, you should take a few moments to allow your body to regulate itself. You will be able to know if you are hurting your body or if the light-headed feeling is from exercising or if it is from your diabetes. If the light-headed feeling does not pass it is important to check your blood sugar levels and contact your doctor right away so that you can be sure that your body is okay and that you can continue your workout.

For more information on how to effectively manage diabetes the natural way starting today, visit www.myiho.com/orlandodiabetesproject. Dr. Marc Ott, DC offers effective solutions to help you maintain a healthy blood sugar level. Visit Integrated Health of Orlando to learn more about how you can begin to manage your diabetes as we are dedicated towards providing effective diabetes solutions to our patients.

Advantages of a Wireless Diabetes Monitoring System

In type 2 diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore it. Insulin is needed by the body to breakdown glucose for energy. When glucose builds up in the blood, instead of going into cells, it can lead to a number of serious health problems, affecting the eye, kidney, heart and other body functions. Today, there are approximately 25.8 million people in the US, or 8.3% of the population, afflicted with type 2 diabetes. The key to controlling type 2 diabetes is through diet, exercise and through testing and watching blood sugar readings on a consistent and reliable basis.

To help better address the healthcare needs of people afflicted with type 2 diabetes, one company has a wireless diabetes management system enabling blood sugar level readings to be transmitted over the cell phone network and then have them stored and managed by healthcare providers through a web-enabled diabetes management software. The system can collect and then transmit readings from most any of the glucose meters available in the US market today.

This wireless diabetes management solutions consist of a "connector" integrated wireless device, software application and a PC interface module. The connector enables the transmission of blood sugar readings from glucose meters through any GSM cellular network. The software application stores and manages patients' data. The PC-interface module enables patients' data to be graphically viewed on any computer or PDA connected through the Internet.

Upon receipt of newly submitted patient data, the systems' server software generates and send feedback messages directly to the patient, via cell-phone or personal computer. The feedback messages are selected by the system based on the patient's historical data.

Through this wireless diabetes management solution, healthcare professionals have the ability to remotely review and better manage patient's blood sugar levels as well as set thresholds to flag readings, according to specific blood sugar levels. In addition, the system has the ability to contact patients via text or email. The solution also enables patients to login and create personal accounts via the Internet as well as to allow them to select which Personal Health Record (PHR) or Electronic Health Record (EMR) system they would like to store their data within or outside the system.

Some of the advantages of using this diabetes management tool, over current practices of collecting patient blood sugar data, include: greater accuracy in reading and storing blood sugar level data by patients and healthcare givers, more reliable remote access to patient blood sugar readings by healthcare providers and ability to provide coaching and positive reinforcement of patient behaviors to improve healthier lifestyles. Additionally, the wireless device is small and portable enough that it can be used anywhere there is access to a GSM cellular network.

Barry Inouye is the President and CEO of Confidant Systems and more information on this new wireless diabetes management system can be found at http://www.confidantinc.com/.

Six Diabetic Weight Loss Mistakes - Avoid Them and Lose Weight

Type 2 diabetic weight loss mistakes will make an already difficult path much harder. If you get discouraged and quit, the consequences to your health and quality of life are much too high a price to pay.

Type 2 diabetes is the result of insulin resistance, and that in itself can cause more weight gain. On top of this, every medication you were given to control your blood sugar adds to weight gain, including injecting insulin.

Why It's So Hard to Lose Weight With Type 2 Diabetes

Our Western style diet of convenience food is loaded with sugar, fat, nitrates and MSG among other things, and everywhere it has gone the local people have seen an enormous rise in obesity and in type 2 diabetes. This is most noticeable among the younger population, probably because they adopt the new ways of eating so much faster than their elders do.

So trying to lose weight while continuing to eat a convenience food diet is going to frustrate a type 2 diabetic who is already fighting insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. But as David found out with Goliath, it's not how strong your enemy is, it's how well you pick your stones and your targets. Just like the six smooth stones, here are six mistakes you can avoid.

Not Eating Enough

There is such a thing as a 600-calorie diet, and there are people who try it. I've done it myself. It will lead you to lose weight but it has two problems. First, you cannot get the things you need to keep you healthy at such a low level, and if you try to exercise on that kind of low calorie diet you will fail. Building muscle is impossible without calories.

The second problem is that once your body has adjusted to this diet, it will lower your metabolism to match your intake, and if you raise your calories, your clever metabolism will store as much as it can in the form of fat. That's so it can survive the next starvation diet.

Since type 2 diabetics already store fat because of insulin imbalances, you are doing the opposite of what needs to be done to reverse type 2 diabetes. This is why not eating enough is the first of the diabetic weight loss mistakes.

What you need to do is learn the best calorie range for your desired weight loss, and remember that it is not the calories you eat but the carbohydrate balance that makes for easy weight loss. That leads to the second of the diabetic weight loss mistakes.

Concentrating on Calories Instead of Carbohydrates

The latest news in diet studies is that a 7-days-a week low calorie diet was beaten by a 2-days-a-week low carbohydrate diet. Not only did the low carb dieters lose a lot more weight, they lowered blood sugar and reduced insulin resistance.

If you are a type 2 diabetic and you eat a low calorie diet you will lose weight, but if you are on a low carbohydrate diet you will lose weight more easily, and you will reduce your body's need for insulin and blood sugar medications too.

Use the glycemic index, stay away from refined carbohydrates, and you'll find yourself on a low carb diet without having to cut so far down on your calories. And you will lose weight.

Watch Out for Expectations

We are human. We may jump off the low carb wagon, or we may hit plateaus during a diet. Diabetic weight loss mistakes include expecting too much, and it can lead to stress and depression. One week you might lose 2 pounds, and the next week not lose any weight.

The best way to diet is not to diet. Choose how you will live, what foods you will eat from now on, and see it as your new life, not as a diet you will be on until you get to a certain weight.

Type 2 diabetes requires doing things differently for the rest of our lives. We are replacing lifetime eating habits, and slip-ups will happen. But we will change if we don't give up.

Diabetic Weight Loss Mistakes Include Not Exercising

Trying to lose weight without exercise is going to lead to frustration. It is much more difficult to continue weight loss and keep it off if you are not active. How often and how long should you exercise? That depends on you.

If you are trying to lose weight, exercise needs to be part of every day. And after you've increased your exercise time to a good hour you will see steady results. That's because you are building muscle, and muscle burns calories and uses free insulin.

That hour does not have to be all in one chunk either. However, the more time you commit to being active, the better you will do. Participants on the Biggest Loser TV show are exercising all day long. They are also on a healthy weight loss diet, but it is the exercise that does the job. So get active every way you can.

Eating While Doing Other Things Is a Diet Breaker

If you watch TV while you are eating, you have fallen into one of the common diabetic weight loss mistakes, and it will lead you to failure. Unconscious eating keeps you from being aware of what or how much you eat. You will not know when you are full either.

This habit often occurs at night during or after supper when you are relaxing. The best advice for those of us who have the habit of unconscious eating is to serve food and sit at the table to eat it. We can't allow ourselves to eat in front of the TV or at a computer or while reading a book.

The serve and sit rule will change many bad eating habits if you will make yourself abide by it. If unconscious eating is a problem this will break it. I confess it's something I still struggle with late in the evening.

Cleaning Your Plate Is a Bad Habit

Your mama said to clean your plate, but that is one of the diabetic weight loss mistakes you need to stop. There is no need to eat everything that is on your plate. In fact, it's good practice to stop eating while there is still food there.

How many times have you filled your plate because you felt very hungry and then realized halfway through the meal that you no longer felt hungry? Yet you probably kept eating because it was there on your plate. We were raised to do that, but it's not a good habit now.

It's important to know when you are full and stop eating the moment you are no longer hungry. If you obeyed the diet tip of using a smaller plate, that helps too. But not finishing what is on your plate is now a desirable trait to have. That goes double if you are eating out. The portions are often way too large anyway.

On the subject of eating out, here are some good habits. Limit salad toppings, serve less pasta, don't use whipped toppings or gravies, and don't order a soda with the meal. If you get dessert make it one of those mini desserts.

Avoid Diabetic Weight Loss Mistakes

Trying to lose weight can be hard and heartbreaking for a type 2 diabetic, but it is possible. Fighting against hunger pangs from high insulin levels and low blood sugar is tough enough without the added problem of sugar addiction that is promoted by our convenience food diet.

My advice? Do the best you can today, forget yesterday, and don't worry about tomorrow. While you are counting carbs and calories, don't forget to count your blessings too. God bless you.

Martha Zimmer invites you to visit her website and learn more about type 2 diabetes, its complications and how you can deal with them, as well as great tips for eating healthy that will make living with diabetes less painful.

Go to http://www.a-diabetic-life.com and find out what you can do to avoid many of the pitfalls of this life-changing condition, like paying for cures that don't work and spending money for things you could have gotten free. Martha has made the mistakes and done the research so you don't have to.

The Value of the Patient-Centered Medical Home

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is an approach to healthcare that is widely seen as a first step toward healthcare reform. The PCMH is usually a primary care office - family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics or geriatrics - that serves as the hub for all a patient's medical needs. Focusing on the whole person, it provides continuous, comprehensive, coordinated care, establishing a partnership between patients and their personal healthcare team as part of an integrated medical neighborhood.

The PCMH emphasizes:

• Enhanced access, making it easier for patients to contact their personal healthcare team;
• Prevention and proactive management of chronic conditions, improving clinical quality and safety;
• Education to engage patients in their care to attain optimum health;
• A team approach to care; and
• Technology, such as electronic health record and patient registries, to facilitate information exchange, storage and retrieval.

According to the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, "Clinicians practicing in the highest level medical home will:

• "Take personal responsibility and accountability for the ongoing care of patients;
• Be accessible to their patients on short notice for expanded hours and open scheduling;
• Be able to conduct consultations through email and telephone;
• Utilize the latest health information technology and evidence-based medical approaches, as well as maintain updated electronic personal health records;
• Conduct regular check-ups with patients to identify looming health crises, and initiate treatment/prevention measures before costly, last-minute emergency procedures are required;
• Advise patients on preventative care based on environmental and genetic risk factors they face;
• Help patients make healthy lifestyle decisions; and
• Coordinate care, when needed, making sure procedures are relevant, necessary and performed efficiently."1

To enable medical practices to adopt these priorities and build the appropriate infrastructure, the PCMH model realigns payment to blend standard fee-for-service reimbursement, a monthly care-management fee and a bonus for meeting or exceeding quality outcomes. Theoretically, this compensation model will shift the focus of care away from acute, episodic care toward more comprehensive, holistic care. It will incorporate both lower costs and better outcomes for patients.

Few practices can achieve the transformation to the PCMH on their own. Most lack the time, expertise and resources to transform their care delivery methods. On-site coaching by quality-improvement experts shows them how to adopt new work flows, realign staffing, acquire and use new technology to its fullest extent, and make the culture change to a quality-driven mindset. Once attained, the new framework allows a practice to improve operations, incorporate quality approaches and increase patients' and care-givers' satisfaction with the healthcare experience.

The PCMH narrows the gap between today's fragmented healthcare system and tomorrow's integrated approach.

Source
1. Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. http://www.pcpcc.net/patient-centered-medical-home, accessed Aug. 15, 2011.

Lisa H. Schneck, MSJ, is staff writer for HealthTeamWorks, a nonprofit medical-practice transformation company in Lakewood, Colo

White Blood Cells in Urine

Finding white blood cells in urine is not common and is usually a sign that something is wrong with the body. Should this occur, individuals would be exposed to a battery of tests to find out exactly why white blood cells are present in the urine that is usually sterile.

Detection of white blood cells in urine can be done through two different methods. The first one is by peeking through the microscope and the other is by using an indicator strip. Either way, both are done in laboratories and are very accurate indicators of the presence of white bcs in a person's urine.

How they get there, however, is another matter. Following are some of the known causes for the presence of white blood cells in the urine.

Urinary Tract Infection
This is actually the most common and also the easiest to treat. The urinary tract encompasses three organs - the bladder, the kidneys and the urethra. As most people know, some of the sign of a UTI include fever, vomiting and painful yet frequent urination. Usually, it is easy to diagnose the presence of UTI because the urine not only contains WBC but also nitrites. This kind of infection usually occurs if bacteria enter the urethra, which could happen during sexual intercourse.

Kidney Disease
A kidney disease is also a big possibility when the white blood cell is present in the urine. At the same time, red bcs and protein would also be present in the liquid. The presence of kidney stones is also a known culprit as these stones block the pathway of the urine. In some cases, the blockage is not made by kidney stones but a tumor in the said organs.

A kidney problem leading to WBC in the urine is not usually felt by the person having it unless the problem is already advanced. Hence, the urinalysis is actually a good indicator of a kidney problem so that people can resolve the disease before it becomes worse.

Bladder Infection
Aside from the presence of WBC in the urine, people with a bladder infection will notice that their urine is very cloudy. This usually happens if a person has any blockage in their bladder, causing the WBC to accumulate in the organ. Pregnant women are also prone to infections that may lead to the presence of white blood cells in their urine.

Of course, there are some cases when white blood cells in urine do not pose a large threat to a person's health. The urine could have been contaminated by WBC from the vagina, in which case obstructions or kidney diseases are not to be blamed.

The presence of white bcs in urine is more of a symptom than the actual cause of the problem. This is why submitting to a routine urinalysis is a good way to prevent problems even before they become too serious. Of course, the amount of white blood cells as well as how often they appear in the urine could also be indicators of an underlying problem.