Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to Diabetes Discourse on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Laura Chiavaroli, who’s an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and an affiliate scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Instituteat St. Michael's Hospital. She’ll be talking about how we can counsel patients on diet and exercise while taking a GLP-1 medicine. Here’s Dr. Chiavaroli now.
Dr. Chiavaroli:
It's always good to think about the patient perspective. I think it's very similar to thinking about it from the physician perspective, where we highlight the importance of thinking about the broader picture. When you're going to start your GLP-1 medicine, you want to start that in combination with a healthy dietary pattern and thinking about what type of exercise routine you might want to be starting. So think about the full puzzle that you want to put together to really help maximize the short- and long-term benefits of your journey.
When it comes to diet specifically, trying to help patients think about an overall balanced, healthy dietary pattern is really where I think we want to be providing that recommendation. A lot of our dietary patterns and even national dietary guidance have these nice balanced pictorials where we're really thinking about having half a plate of fruits and vegetables, having a quarter of a plate of protein, and then having a quarter of a plate of a grain of some sort, ideally a whole grain. So it’s that nice idea of a balanced diet. With a GLP-1, your appetite's going to come down, but having those small, frequent meals will be important to really help mitigate those potential GI side effects as well as those potential nutrient deficiencies and overall help to establish healthy dietary habits.
So I think the bottom line for both diet and exercise when we're speaking to what might work for patients is to be thinking about having that conversation with them. What exercises do they enjoy? Which ones can they see themselves taking on? What do they have access to? So thinking about what works for their lifestyle and their accessibility is where we want to start. We want to start with 100 to 150 minutes per week of moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, so maybe 30 minutes five times a week. So think about what that looks like for somebody. It could be walking. It could be swimming. It could be dancing. It could be anything that they really like, and it can alternate between the days of the week. So think about what works for them as well as the ways to help with support—like getting a workout buddy or a friend that you can go for a walk with or a family walk after dinner—to help make it something that's sustainable as well.
And then when it comes to that resistance training, ensure that doesn't fall off the mark. It's not just about aerobic activity; it's also about that weight-bearing activity, and that can be anything that is available or that person might be open to. So it could be lifting weights, resistance bands, or body weight exercises like squats or push-ups. They don’t have to build a gym at home. It’s just thinking about what works for them. And so maybe two days a week they're thinking about a set of eight to 10 exercises and doing 10 to 15 repetitions of movements using those various exercises and then doing one to three sets. They can start slow so that they can get a good routine going, and then they can build from there.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Laura Chiavaroli sharing practical strategies for counseling patients on diet and exercise while taking a GLP-1 medicine. To access this and other episodes in this series, visit Diabetes Discourse on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!