Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle on Your Next Vacation

‘Tis the season for vacations! Summer is just around the corner so while you’re planning the perfect trip and researching all the great destinations to visit, you may wonder how a vacation will fit in with your health goals. If that sounds like you, we’ve got some tips to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle on your next vacation!

Plan Ahead

When you make your travel arrangements, include plans for meals and snacks to stay on track with your goals. Research the menus of restaurants you want to eat so you can spend less time on vacation worrying about how your meals will fit into your healthy lifestyle.

Before you leave on your trip, consider beginning a weight loss program to help you with your plan. Our NextStepMD Weight Loss Program is designed to help you lose weight, maintain weight loss, and gain better control of your health. We offer one-on-one sessions and work closely with our patients to recommend the methods that offer the greatest opportunities of success. We’ll educate, motivate and support you through your weight loss journey, which includes establishing new eating habits to incorporate throughout your expected – and unexpected – travels.

Pack Snacks

Whether you’re planning a road trip or flying across the country (or world!), stock up on non-perishable snacks so that you have healthy food options ready. If you’re flying, remember to make sure they are TSA-approved! Having healthy snacks prepared will allow you to eat small, frequent meals throughout your trip – which helps to keep you feeling satisfied and helps keep your metabolism stoked.

One of the exclusive weight loss methods that we use is our NextStepMD supplements & meal plans. The unique NextStepMD meal plans are an easy-to-follow three-phase program and provide lots of variety and choice, so you will never feel deprived. Our NextStepMD health and wellness coaches will work with you to make sure you have planned snacks that are both sensible and sustainable on your next vacation.

Stay Active

Search for opportunities to explore your new location by being active! There are a variety of ways to incorporate exercise while on vacation. Look for opportunities like biking tours, take advantage of a hotel pool, or do some of your sightseeing on foot.

If you’re not sure if the location will have many opportunities to get active, take a few minutes each morning to do a short workout. You could walk up a flight of stairs, complete a hotel-room workout, or take a quick walk. Whether you’re taking a walk on the beach or hiking through the mountains, make sure your vacation includes plenty of exercise.

Whether you’re independently on a healthy lifestyle journey or are a participant in a weight loss program to help guide your choices, with a little planning your vacation can fit in with your health goals.

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and check back with us each month as we provide you helpful wellness and health information.

Dr. Hien Tran speaks about pre-diabetes

Our very own, Dr. Hien Tran, spoke to @SilverSneakers about what it means to have pre-diabetes. “Once you have prediabetes, the chances of progressing to diabetes are quite high, and it also raises your risk of developing heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease,” says Hien Tran, M.D. “So lifestyle changes that address your prediabetes are crucial for overall health.” At Texas Diabetes, our goal is to help people gain better control over their health, so contact us if you have any questions about prediabetes.

Read the entire article here:https://www.silversneakers.com/blog/your-doc-says-you-have-prediabetes-now-what/

Insulin infusion technology

The pace of diabetes innovation has sped up tremendously over the past two decades. While there is still no cure, there are a plethora of new medications, therapies, tools and technologies that make living with diabetes more manageable and easier. Let’s take a look back at how far we have come.

Portable subcutaneous continuous insulin infusion (CSII) pumps  made their first appearance in the early 1970s. Research studies in early 2000s supported the change in guidelines by demonstrating that switching from multiple daily injections to CSII pump therapy could make a significant impact on the HbA1c by 0.25%-0.75% reduction after 1 year of pump therapy. It also improves fasting blood glucose, episodes of hypoglycemia, and blood glucose variability.

 Current players in the market include, Insulet OmniPod, Medtronic MiniMed, Roche, and Tandem t:slim. It was Medtronic in 2013 that changed the playing field by launching the first FDA-Approved Artificial Pancreas Device System with Hypoglycemia Threshold Suspend Automation. This was the first time patients with diabetes were able to have their fears of hypoglycemia reduced. This system automatically shut the pump off if a patient’s blood sugar was dropping too low and would resume activity once the sugar was trending back up.

In 2015 Tandem t:slim, paired with the Dexcom G4, offered a predictive low suspend feature with a touch screen.

In 2017, Medtronic launched the World’s First Hybrid Closed Loop System for Type 1 Diabetes called Minimed 670G. This new system was a step towards the “artificial pancreas”. This pump predictively adjusted insulin doses to address  both lows and highs.

Not to be left behind, Tandem released in  2020 the Tandem t:slim X2 Hybrid Closed Loop system with integration of Dexcom’s latest CGM model called G6.

These hybrid closed loop systems provide patients more flexibility, less worry, and more time in range. It is estimated that only 20-30% of type 1 diabetes patients and <1% of type 2 diabetes patients currently use insulin pumps. The often mentioned disadvantages  of using an insulin pump  include cost, body image, and some find them to be burdensome.

Glucose testing technology

Glucose testing has come a long way since using urine glucose testing in 1908, to the first blood glucose strip in 1965, and the first glucometer in the 1970s. It wasn’t until the National Institute of Health conducted a trial in the 1980s to confirm the need to monitor and control diabetes.

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