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When I craved something sweet, I would go and grab a Snickers bar.
And okay, that would be -
okay, well I can have an orange too, because that's on the list.
And you know what, at the beginning it would be close your eyes and
just pretend it was a Snickers bar and down it, and then it got easier and easier.
[Music]
Hi, I'm Amanda Reichard. And I'm Muriel Saunders.
We're directing a weight loss program for people with physical disabilities.
This is a three-year project funded by NIDRR and participants follow one of two diet programs.
One is a program very similar to the My Pyramid, or now called My Plate, diet, and the second is a diet that
involves meal replacements, frozen entrees to be exact,
and protein shakes that were donated by HMR Products.
They also have what's called a Stoplight chart, which shows them in color coding those things that are low in calories,
those are green items, we chart them as green items, yellow, ones to be slightly careful about
and red light items, those things that they should avoid.
One component that is important to both of the diets is that participants meet with a dietician or an exercise physiologist
at least once a month to review their goals, to review ideas for continuing to make changes
and replacements in their diet that work better for them,
so this provides a sense of social support throughout the entire project.
Many of the participants in our study also, in addition to being overweight, have diabetes and
an important outcome of the study is that in addition to losing weight they have been able to get their blood sugar under control
and manage their diabetes through exercise and diet.
Karen Magliaro is one of the participants who is losing weight and improving her health. After nine months in the 18-month study,
she had lost 46 pounds and was able to reduce her diabetes medication.
My weight has gone down but my health has gotten much better.
Cutting off all the sugars and the cookies and the garbage, my blood sugars have gone way down.
I was doing almost 80 units of insulin at night before bed. Now I'm down to 20.
Although participants are not required to exercise, we encourage them to do so and provide them
with ideas for accessible exercise.
Participant Lou Reed is also improving her health as she loses weight. After 12 months in the 18-month study
she had lost 22 pounds.
Yeah, my blood sugar used to be real high, it used to be in the two hundreds. My blood sugars are now in the nineties.
Eighties and the nineties, so my blood sugar is way down and it has been since I've been on this program.
The fact that people who are morbidly obese or obese who have many complicating factors in their lives
many with multiple chronic conditions
in addition to obesity, the fact that they are able to lose weight despite all those factors and that
those with diabetes are able to get
their diabetes under control, is testament to this model working for this population in particular.
Ultimately we hope that Medicaid and other health insurance companies will want to provide
similar services for their beneficiaries.
So we're collecting data and using the Medicaid administrative claims data to examine how the
weight loss and participation in the study
has influenced their health care utilization and health outcomes so that we can use that as argument for
reasons why they should support programs like this, preventive programs
We support these people on the diet for a total of a year-and-a-half and during that time they report that
they begin to feel better and they begin to make lifestyle changes.
At the end of the year-and-a-half we hope that those
lifestyle changes are engrained in their daily lives.
So now I keep fresh fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator, I get the celery home and I clean it and keep it in a bowl of water,
and when I want something to crunch on I'll go and grab a stalk of celery instead of grabbing maybe a cookie or a bag of chips.
I'm not as grouchy. I feel good about myself,
you know, I see the weight coming off. Being overweight is very stressful.
And if I want it, it's even better you know.