Meet Pastor Bob Vale, Healthy Me! Participant

Healthy Me! Participant Bob Vale spends most of his time caring for others. As the Pastor of Osceola United Methodist Church, he’s called upon at all times of the day by his congregation.  When he isn’t helping them, he’s busy on the racquetball court, or the father of three adult children is at home with his wife.

Roughly two years ago, he got a bit of a wake-up call when he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.   This type of diabetes is the most common form, affecting 90-95% of the 26 million American with diabetes. People who suffer with Type 2 Diabetes are able to make insulin for their bodies, but they either don’t make enough or the body is unable to use the insulin properly. This causes the body’s cells to be deprived of glucose, which means the cells aren’t able to function properly. 

Over time, this can cause damage to nerves and small blood vessels of the eyes, kidneys and heart. It can also increase urination and cause dehydration.

After learning about his diagnosis, Bob worked very hard to lose about 30 pounds and plays racquetball with friends 4-5 days a week. And while this, along with some medication, has helped him, Bob hopes that the Healthy Me! Program will help him achieve his long term goals.

In his essay to become a participant in the program, Bob wrote, “I would like to be accepted as one of the six participants of the Healthy Me! Program to one day experience the reality and celebration of grandchildren, a fifty year marriage, retirement and to live beyond the devastating effects of diabetes.”

He has taken steps to beginning that process. Recently, Bob met with Dr. Donald Troyer, Family Medicine of South Bend, P.C., to talk about ways he can help improve his medical status.  Standing a little over 6’2”, Bob weighs 239 pounds. 

Bob met with Erin Hurst, a registered dietitian at SaintJoseph Regional Medical Center, to discuss his eating habits and ways he can improve what and how much he eats. Based on his height, weight and body mass index, Erin suggested an 1800-2000 calorie diet with about 90-108 grams of protein each day.

She also recommends that he eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day with a goal of three meals and two snacks.  According to her, a good rule of thumb is to strive for meals that are about 500 calories with about 25 grams of protein and snacks that are about 200 calories with about 8 grams of protein.

Erin suggested that all the participants use My Fitness Pal to track their daily calories.   The computer application offers participants a way to track their food intake by providing nutritional information for common foods. By tracking food for at least 30 days, participants will understand their eating habits better and can make more informed choices.

Bob is also working with Jonell Witkowski twice a month at Memorial Health & Lifestyle Center to plan workout regimens that will help him lose weight. A military veteran from Desert Storm, Bob isn’t afraid of discipline or hard work!

To follow Bob’s progress through the Healthy Me! Program check back on our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Five Nutritional Tips from Registered Dietitian, Erin Hurst

Our Healthy Me! Program Registered Dietitian, Erin Hurst, from Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center wants to help you make better nutritional choices! Here are five tips to help you get started.

One size does not fit all when it comes to nutrition and weight management.  Some people may need to reduce calories, while others may need to eat more frequently.  However, there are a few strategies that many people can use when first getting started on a new plan to establish a healthy weight.

1. Keep a food and beverage log for at least 30 days.
There are several different ways to track food and beverage, from apps to online tools, spreadsheets and even a good old-fashion journal.  When first getting started, tracking intake is more about becoming aware of your dietary habits.  When are you eating?  How much are you eating?  Why are you eating?  Where are your food and beverages coming from?  Are you getting more calories from beverages than foods?  Is there a food group missing?  Once you understand these habits you will be able to recognize areas in which you could make small changes.

2. Develop an eating pattern that includes small meals more frequently throughout the day. 
Breaking up large meals into smaller portions and eating more often throughout the day provides several benefits.  First and foremost, more frequent meals helps you stay off the blood sugar roller coaster, which tends to zap your energy and can put you in a bad mood.  Second, more frequent meals tend to help you stay full longer, so at the next meal you may actually consume less. 

3. Eat breakfast.
There is truth in the old adage, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."  It is your first opportunity each day to break your overnight fast from sleeping.  The nutrients that you take in at breakfast help fuel your daily activities.  Additionally, breakfast eaters tend to make better food choices throughout the day, which leads to eating more nutrient dense foods (like fruits, vegetables and lean meats) rather than calorically dense foods (like sodas, chips and candy).  A good breakfast may provide 300-500 calories and at least 20 grams of protein.

4. Focus on fresh foods.
Fresh foods offer more nutrients and less additives than processed foods.  Eating a baked potato with homemade salsa has more fiber, essential vitamins and minerals and offers far fewer calories than a bag of potato chips.  Another good example is a grilled chicken breast.  While it may not have any fewer calories than sliced lunch meat, it does have far less sodium.  Additionally, processed lunch meats may have added sugars, which serve as preservatives, but do not add any essential nutritive value.

5. Take time to plan meals and snacks.
Planning meals and snacks is a key to success for any weight-management program.  Making a grocery list based on meals and snacks you plan to eat for the week can help you budget and prevent you from buying excess food.  Preparing snacks ahead of time takes some of the guess work out of what to eat during a busy work week.  Part of this prep work might include breaking down bulk items into individual serving sizes, which will help you manage portion sizes.  For people who eat on the run, spending time reviewing restaurant websites for nutritional information will help you make lists of healthy food choices that you can easily select while you are on the go.

Meet Healthy Me! Program Participant, Deborah Gordon

Tuesday, April 1st was a busy day in South Bend for Deborah Gordon. 

Deborah, a wife and mother of two, had an appointment with Dr. Mader and then one immediately following with Dr. Scheel.

Most people would dread two appointments, but that wasn’t the case with Deborah. This Healthy Me! Program participant welcomed the advice from the dentist and her physician. The appointments were her second step to becoming a healthier person.

Dr. Mader and his staff worked with Deborah to get several x-rays of her mouth and pictures of her smile.  Lacking dental insurance has been a struggle for Deborah, who has continued to care for her dental needs by seeing dental students at Indiana University in South Bend. Following her appointment and consultation with Dr. Mader, it was a straight shot down Highway 23 to see Dr. Scheel, a physician with Family Medicine of South Bend, P.C.

After the nurse obtained her vital signs, Deborah and Dr. Scheel spoke about what she hopes to gain from the Healthy Me! Program. As Deborah had stated in her Healthy Me! Program essay, “All I want in life is to be healthy and happy, of which I am neither.  My obesity plagues me and burdens my enthusiasm for life.”

Dr. Scheel noted that probably Deborah’s biggest problem is the extra weight she carries, which could at some point lead to Type II Diabetes. 

He encouraged her to get on the scale every day.  Although some physicians may not recommend this process, he believes it will help her to be accountable.  His advice was not to worry about the day to day variability because that could change depending on salt intake and menstrual cycle, but to weigh at the same time of the day in the same outfit.  By writing down her weight each day, she will be able to notice trends from week to week and changes from month to month.

Dr. Scheel also talked with Deborah about the importance of exercise.  He wanted her to commit to exercise for a month, because as he stated, “you can do anything for a month!”  Take it a month at a time, after this month commit to another month after that month commit to two months and before you know it, “you’ll feel better, if you are making dietary changes, you’ll lose weight, you’ll be toning you muscles and replacing fat with muscle, and at the end of 90 days you will notice changes.”

Deborah’s personal goal for weight loss is to lose 10 pounds a month, but Dr. Scheel cautioned her that her goal may be a bit ambitious and perhaps not realistic for the long term.  Instead, that may be a realistic goal for the first month, but he hopes to see her lose approximately 2-4 pounds per month with diet and exercise.

The next step for Deborah is lab work at The Medical Foundation.  She currently doesn’t have any medical issues other than allergies and isn’t taking any medications.

Medical Foundation Employees... Rock Your Pride!

Coming up the week of April 21 – 25, Medical Foundation employees will be celebrating. Yes, some will celebrate Dyngus Day, maybe even a birthday or two.  But the focus of the celebration will be – Lab Week.

During Lab Week, laboratories around the United States will thank their laboratory professionals and pathologists for the vital role they play in health care.

You see, our phlebotomists, MTs, MLTs and Pathologists are the “behind the scene players” who quietly perform critical laboratory testing on a daily basis.

When patients are in the hospital, they look to their physicians and hospital caregivers to make them feel better. And for that to happen, the physician often orders laboratory testing that gives clues to what ails the patient. In approximately 70% of cases, physicians rely on laboratory testing to make a diagnosis. 

Often, the pathologist works directly with local physicians to determine the best care for patients. For example, our pathologists meet with a tumor board weekly to discuss cancer cases with local oncologists.

Foundation employees specialize in various departments such as determining the presence of infectious diseases in Microbiology or testing lifesaving units of blood in the blood bank.  There’s also the Molecular Pathology/ Flow Cytometry Department where HIV testing is completed and testing for gene mutations.  Four floors of our Central Laboratory building are dedicated to patient testing, which doesn’t even include our satellite labs. Each year, The Foundation performs over 6 million tests, 50,000 Surigical Pathology cases and 93,500 pap smears. Again, these are just a few of the tests performed, but will hopefully give you some perspective.

The laboratory process is one many patients don’t think about.  Instead, it’s a mysterious phenomenon where blood is drawn and the results magically appear.  In reality, we have couriers, specimen processors, and many professionals behind the scenes ensuring that your specimen is cared for and that results are available as soon as possible.

So this year, The Medical Foundation employees will celebrate! They’ll be served a great lab week luncheon on Wednesday, bond with retirees on Tuesday and wear their “Rock Your Pride” t-shirts on Friday.

They’re lab employees … and they get results!

Meet Healthy Me! Program Participant, Bret Bajdek

 

 

At 33 years old, Bret Bajdek spends a lot of his time coaching students at Saint Joseph Catholic High School. As he tries to set good examples and mentor members of the boys’ football and golf teams, he decided it was time to take a look in the mirror and push himself to become a healthier person.

“In high school and college I was constantly trying to put on weight to become a bigger and better football player.  What I didn’t know then was that I would unsuccessfully be trying to shake that weight nearly fifteen years later,” said Bajdek.

That’s what led Bajdek to apply for the Healthy Me! Program. Now, at 340 pounds, he will work with a registered dietitian, a local physician, and fitness specialists this year, in hopes of losing nearly 100 pounds.

But this year, Bret knows that his typical yo-yo diets aren’t the answer.  Instead, he’ll be attempting to make a lifestyle change by incorporating better food choices and more exercise into his daily routine.

Bret also has a very personal motivation for becoming healthier, his brother, Jonathon.  Two years ago, Jonathon died from complications with Cystic Fibrosis. 

“I can’t help but think of how selfish it is for me to put myself at risk for so many health problems because of a problem that I can fix.  I know that finally losing weight, keeping it off, and becoming healthier would be something that would make my brother proud,” said Bajdek.

His players are also a source of motivation for the South Bend resident.  He said that often when he coaches he feels like a hypocrite. 

“I yell at my football players to run faster, run longer, lift weights, push themselves harder, and put in the extra work necessary to make them better at what they do.  Yet, I am winded walking up to the press box on Friday nights before games. I don’t want to be a hypocrite anymore; I want to be able to lead by example,” he said.

During Bret’s initial visit with Dr. Troyer at FamilyMedicine of South Bend, P.C. at the beginning of April, the two discussed Bret’s sleeping habits and found that this may be hindering his weight loss.  Dr. Troyer recommended only using the bedroom for sleeping and that Bret should remove the television and make the room a dark, cool place where he only sleeps and doesn’t engage in mind stimulating activities such as using electronics, reading or watching television.   

Bret is also currently only getting about four hours of sleep at night and Dr. Troyer recommends getting between seven and eight hours each night.  This is one of the goals Bret is working on before his next appointment.

This practice, along with recommendations from Erin Hurst, the Registered Dietician from Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, will help Bret achieve his goals during the next year.  He’s already started participating in spinning classes, walking and lifting weights at Memorial Health & Lifestyle Center. 

To follow Bret’s progress during the next year continue to visit our blog and our website at www.sbmf.org!

   

Meet Healthy Me! Program Participant, Erika Jackson

She walked confidently into the building with her hair neatly in braids, it didn’t seem as though she was nervous at all.  Selected as one of the final six participants in the Healthy Me! Program, she was ready to begin her journey to a healthier self.

Erika Jackson moved here in November from Fort Wayne and lives with her two children, her mother and her mother’s husband. 

As an employee in the registration and checkout area in the Emergency Room at Memorial Hospital and an on-call EMT for Prompt, Erika knows how important it is to be healthy.

“They are providing the right tools for me to become healthy, I’m excited about this program,” said Erika. She couldn’t believe she was chosen for the program and almost didn’t apply, but at the last minute she decided she would never be chosen if she didn’t even apply so she reconsidered.

Since she doesn’t live alone, she finds it hard to find a balance between eating what others in the household are eating and items she feels are healthy.  And, she claims she is guilty of stress eating, turning to snacks such as snack cakes, vegetables, kale chips and fruit for comfort. Erika also is addicted to Pepsi and drinks about 40 ounces of the sugary drink each day.

Erika met with Dr. Brian Jacobs from Family Medicine of South Bend, P.C. at the end of March for some guidance on what she needs to focus on throughout the next year. At that appointment, the nurse took her vitals and Dr. Jacobs asked her some family medical background information, questions about her lifestyle choices such as how much caffeine does she drink, does she smoke, and if she had any conditions she knew of that he should be aware. 

During the appointment, Erika mentioned that she smokes about 2-3 cigarettes a day.  One of her goals will be to eliminate use of Nicotine.  Also, she will work hard to decrease the amount of regular Pepsi that she consumes. And finally, Erika hopes to lose 8-10 pounds by her birthday which is June 2nd.

Dr. Jacobs encouraged her to begin walking approximately an hour a day, and mentioned that for each mile walked, she will more than likely lose about 100 calories. According to Jacobs, a pound is about 3500 calories and if she burns about 500 calories a day and exercises 7 days a week right now, she’ll more than likely lose weight.

During the next week or two, Erika will be meeting with the Registered Dietitian, Erin Hurst, from Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center and she will have her lab work completed by The Medical Foundation.

Although she said she was nervous, Erika took the first steps to becoming healthier and throughout the next year she hopes to, “learn tools to live healthy long after the program is over,” she said.

*Photo courtesy of South Bend Tribune

A potentially life changing opportunity is handed to six local residents

On March 24th the lives of six local people changed when they received word that they were chosen for the Healthy Me! Program. 

Each of them wrote a 500 word essay and agreed to waive their right to privacy while involved in the program in exchange for advice from local healthcare providers.

This year’s participants are: Bret Bajdek, Bob Vale, Erika Jackson, Deborah Gordon, Joni Nedderman and Shaun Riffle.

Bret Bajdek, 33, South Bend, Indiana
“As a high school football and golf coach, I have begun to feel beyond hypocritical.  I yell at my football players to run faster, run longer, lift weights, push themselves harder, and put in the extra work necessary to make them better at what they do, yet I am winded walking up to the press box on Friday nights before games.  On the golf course I am telling the players who have walked 18 holes that they shouldn’t be tired, yet I have barely gotten out of the cart all day.  I don’t want to be a hypocrite any more, I want to be able to lead by example.  It’s time and I think this program is the best opportunity and I want to be held accountable.”

Erika Jackson, 33, South Bend, Indiana
Erika is an employee at Memorial Hospital and is ready to make lifestyle changes that will enable her to become a healthier individual and a good example for her two children. “Recently I put on 30 pounds and I was already overweight.  I can’t even bend over and tie my show from a seated position.  I find myself getting winded very easily and my self-confidence has been effected.”

Deborah Gordon, 49, New Carlisle, Indiana
As a wife and mother of two girls, Deborah’s goal is to become a happier and healthier person during the next year.  “It’s critical that I try to promote a healthy lifestyle and mealtime options for my children otherwise they may suffer from the same vicious cycle in their future.  I grew up being a chubby kid with poor eating habits that developed at a young age. I cherish the opportunity to work with your dietitian and personal trainer to instill healthy eating and exercise routines to encourage my weight loss. I lost weight before, I must do it again!”
Bob Vale, 52, Osceola, Indiana
“Two years ago I was told that I have diabetes and that things needed to change with my diet, exercise, medications and lifestyle. I have worked hard to change with my diet, exercise several times a week, and began daily medications.  I have lost thirty pounds, but for the past year I have been at a standstill and have found it very difficult to lose any more weight or lower my numbers significantly.  I want to one day experience the reality and celebration of grandchildren, a fifty year marriage, retirement, and to live beyond the devastating effects of my diabetes.”

Joni Nedderman, 54, South Bend, Indiana
As a wife and mother of six girls, Joni Nedderman is busy balancing her responsibilities at home and as a business owner. “I’ve been busy raising a family and helping in our business that I haven’t taken the time to care for myself the way I should.  I’m also watching my blood pressure.  I know I need to take charge of my life now while I am still able.  I feel if I could just find some motivation I could change the future of my family, as well as myself.”

Shaun Riffle, 23, Mishawaka, Indiana
“I have goals and dreams that include one day being a store manager, buying a house, and marrying my girlfriend of over four years and starting a family; however, my weight and health issues can and will stand in my way of obtaining my goals if the problem does not get under control.  I have a deep desire to be fit and healthy as well as an ever deeper fear of having a heart attack or facing many other health problems along the way.  I am committed to taking this journey of losing weight, getting in shape and reaching my goals of living a long, happy and healthy life.  I would someday like to tell my story to others in hopes of encouraging someone else to make the commitment to change their life forever, as well. I will work hard, listen, learn and carry the experience and knowledge I will gain with me throughout the rest of my life.”

Over the next year, they will receive twice a month sessions at Memorial Health & Lifestyle Center with Fitness Specialists Dave Woods and Jonell Witkowski along with a free gym membership. 

They will also meet monthly with physicians from Family Medicine of South Bend, P.C. and Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center Registered Dietitian, Erin Hurst.  The Medical Foundation will be providing quarterly laboratory testing and Dr. Jeffrey Mader will provide dental care. 

You can follow their progress and their struggles as they strive to hit their goal weight and become healthier individuals by following our and reading articles like the one published today in the Health section of the South Bend Tribune.