Nutrisystem has just announced the availability of their 5-Day Jumpstart Your Weight Loss Kits in more than 2,000 Walmart locations.

The kit contains 15 entrees, five desserts, a meal planner, and access to free weight loss counseling for just $44.98. All of the food is low on the glycemic index, and contains a balanced proportion of quality carbs, good fats, and proteins. For instance, the Jumpstart Kit begins your week with granola cereal for breakfast, red beans and rice for lunch, lasagna with meat sauce for dinner, and a chocolatey nougat bar with peanuts and caramel for dessert. Not bad.

In addition to the new Jumpstart Kit, Nutrisystem is also rolling out another 5-Day Kit for their specifically designed diabetic diet, Nutrisystem D. The kit is geared toward the sensitive dietary needs of diabetes sufferers attempting to lose weight.

Nutrisystem—traditionally a meal delivery system available for order over the phone or web—widened its retail scope when they began offering their products at Costco stores in 2009. The typical Nutrisystem program is 28 days long, and the new 5-Day Jumpstart Kit is designed to ease dieters in with a simple and easy plan.
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• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first of a new class of drugs to treat Type 2 Diabetes called Invokana.

• Invokana filters sugar into the kidney as opposed to previous medications which manipulated insulin levels to control blood sugar.

• Our resident pharmacist Dr. Sarah Kahn says there are some concerns regarding how Invokana will affect the heart. According to Kahn, the current data is inconclusive, so they are conducting a trial called the CANVAS study (Canagliflozin Cardiovascular Assessment Study). Those results won’t be available until 2015. In addition, the FDA is requiring Janssen Pharmaceuticals – Invokana’s manufacturer - to conduct five studies once the drug hits the market.
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Last year I participated in the Saratoga Springs Tour de Cure, an annual bike ride that is held nationwide to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. One of the most inspiring things about the Tour are the Red Riders, individuals who live and ride with diabetes. To better explain what the Red Rider program is and about her own aspirations, I had the pleasure of interviewing the founder of the Red Rider program, Mari Ruddy!

She runs the daily business and management of TeamWILD, a program that teaches adults how to live with diabetes through exercise. She also coaches and speaks at ADA Tour de Cure rides. Mari’s working on a book that will no doubt highlight the success of the Red Riders, the health battles she’s personally fought and won, and offer guidance and insight for diabetics to truly live.

Tell me about the Red Rider program.

I’m the founder of the Red Riders, who are cyclists with diabetes. I also started the first Team Red. Now all 90 Tour de Cure rides have Red Riders and a Team Red. The first year there were 111 Red Riders. This summer, 2013, there will be [more than] 7,000 Red Riders in the US. In 2012, all the Red Riders together raised $3.9 million. The goal in 2013 is [for] the Red Riders [to] collectively raise $4.5 million. The Tour itself raised more than $26 million in 2012. These numbers are very exciting.

How much money does “your” Tour raise?

My “home” Tour for the past seven years was the one in Colorado. Now that I’ve moved back to my home state, I consider the Tour de Cure Twin Cities in Minnesota my home ride! We intend to raise $1 million this year at the Minnesota Tour.
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We all have that friend. The skinny one who eats whatever they want and never exercises. We all secretly dislike them for this trait and at the same time, wish we could be like them. New research is showing that they might be in a bad position, even worse than an overweight person who hits the gym. As scientist Bente Pedersen said this week, “It’s much better to be fit and fat, than skinny and lazy.”

Pedersen contributed along with many other professionals in Bill Gifford’s article for Outside this week. The article focused on more truths that have been revealed about fat. The report was lengthy but it highlighted some important misnomers about fat. Most know that we have “good” fat and “bad” fat, or subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. The good fat is more or less padding, while bad fat builds up in our mid-sections and can infiltrate our organs. A picture of fat invading muscles like the marbling of beef was used to describe how visceral fat can affect the inactive, not just the obese.

This bleak outlook of how fat can literally take over was explained further by Gerald Shulman, M.D., a diabetes researcher at Yale who contributed to the Outside article. Shulman explained how the amount of fat one has isn’t the problem, more so, it’s how the fat is distributed. He explained how fat build up in areas like the muscle and liver, or places it simply should not be, is when ailments like type 2 diabetes arise.
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Isn’t it a little bold to say you’re curing diabetes, was my first question for Biggest Loser’s Dr. Robert Huizenga, better known as Dr. H. He asserted that not only can it be done, but Biggest Loser is blazing the trail where curing diabetes is concerned. Yes, a reality show is doing more than his standard medical peers.

We spoke this morning in preparation for tonight’s episode in which the contestants will spend their last week on the ranch. As everyone says their farewells, they’ll meet with Dr. H one more time to find out, aside from their scale weight, how they’ve changed their bodies and their health. For Gina, she’s leaving the ranch without the type 2 diabetes she arrived with.

“If we can keep Gina at the levels she’s at tonight for the next 2-5 years, we’ll say we cured her diabetes,” said Dr. Huizenga.

How is that so? Right now, Gina’s diabetes has been reversed, or is in remission. As Dr. Huizenga explained, they’ve returned all the indicators to normal. To achieve cure, they have to stay that way for the next several years.

Gina’s not the only one turning back time on this disease. Young Lindsay, one of the teen ambassadors featured this season, is celebrating a complete reversal of her pre-diabetes. Doing so at such a young age is better and easier than trying to go back when she’s forty, explained the doctor.

“It’s like putting the toothpaste back in the tube,” he analogized.
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