Lisa Waterman Gray Courtesy of Shawnee Mission Medical Center

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• Lullaby and Goodnight?
• No Gym Required
• Changing with the Times
• A Practice Worth Embracing
• Choosing Health

Basic Nutrition Tips *Skipping a meal to lose weight actually slows your metabolism. *Drink at least 64 ounces of fluids per day. Much, if not all of that, should be plain water or decaffeinated beverages. *Eat whole grains because the fiber fills you up better so you feel full longer. They also provide dietary protein and slow down sugar’s progression through the body. *Reducing intake of animal products could reduce clogged arteries, heart disease and cancer. If your budget allows, Colleen recommends buying organic dairy items. *Eat fruit rather than drinking juice because fruit fiber fills you up better and longer. *Virtually all of the time, if you wean yourself off refined sugars, other foods will taste sweeter. *You can remove up to half of the sugar in recipes and retain flavor.

If you must have an Oreo, consider eating some string cheese on the side. Protein from the cheese might help control your blood sugar and insulin levels. Surprised? The way you combine foods can significantly impact the overall nutrition you receive from your diet. This is just one of many suggestions that nutritionists and dietitians can provide for people who seek help to improve how they eat (although they would rather see you skip the cookie).

“My goal is to keep people healthy and simplify the learning process for them,” says Colleen Bauman, owner of Choose Health and a certified health educator and nutrition coach. “I believe almost everybody can use help if they don’t feel like they know how to implement changes in their own lives. It is a choice to be healthy, and most people say they need motivation, although illness is truthfully why many people seek me out.”

Colleen begins with a client’s profile that includes health history and current eating habits. They then discuss where the client is in terms of diet and health and where he or she wants to end up, always with the message that change is incremental.

“These are lifestyle changes that you make gradually for the average person,” says Barbara Marsh, a registered and licensed dietitian, certified diabetes educator and coordinator of the nutrition clinic at Shawnee Mission Medical Center. “We provide accurate nutrition information and simplify what they’ve heard, and break it down into realistic, easy steps. And we take at least 15 minutes to listen to them regarding what they eat and their lifestyle.

“[We do a] simple evaluation of eating habits, including balance of nutrients, time of day of eating and eating too much of one kind of food. How often and how long we see people varies greatly.” Most of Barbara’s generally healthy clients come in because they’re concerned about a genetic predisposition to disease, frustrated over minimal success in making dietary changes on their own or have an issue, such as becoming out of breath when walking up a flight of stairs. How hands-on Barbara and her colleagues are with clients also depends on individual needs.

Nutrition 101
“We spend a lot of time with clients on nutrition labels and serving sizes,” Barbara says. Although nutrition values might look great at first, they could be cast in a completely different light when serving size is taken into account.

One home health dietitian in Barbara’s department visits individual clients’ homes to check what food they have in their pantries and to suggest changes, but this generally occurs when a client has developed a significant medical condition like diabetes.

Shelf Help
Colleen offers ‘shelf help’ for interested clients and helps them find substitutes and healthy options that can replace current, less healthy choices, while always keeping individual life circumstances and responsibilities in mind.

Some clients ask her to shop with them. During such a trip, she helps the client or a small client group learn why, for instance, to choose one bread over another, for lower sugar content or more fiber or whole grains.

Recipe Makeovers
Colleen also helps clients with meal makeovers. “Most people eat the same seven to eight things all the time,” she says. “I just tweak [a recipe] and make it healthier.”

“I do something I call, ‘Can this recipe be saved?’” Barbara says. “Usually, there are just a few changes we can make and still eat these recipes. And we encourage people to expand their eating choices.”

“I don’t teach diets,” Colleen adds. “I teach changing your life to get you healthier.” She tells clients to be mindful of and make good food choices 80 percent of the time and eat whatever they want the other 20 percent. Over time, this teaches people that occasional ‘indulging’ is OK.”

Getting help
Colleen says it’s important to find a nutrition coach or dietitian who will teach you tools that address your specific needs in order to implement dietary changes. Check their credentials and how they were trained. Also, observe whether this person is healthy, himself or herself.

Making significant dietary changes takes time, even with a qualified nutritionist or dietitian leading the way, but the results can positively impact the rest of your life.
“[Our clients say] ‘I didn’t realize I wasn’t feeling good until I started feeling so much better,’” Barbara says.