I’ve just got to share the sheer joy and reward I’ve recently experienced facilitating yet another chat-based online weight loss group for the program called vtrimonline.com.

Picture this: It’s Tuesday evening at 7pm ET. Somewhere between 10 to 20 people who range in age, health concerns and pounds to shed; log on to the vtrimonline website for one of our 12  weekly chats. No phones, no cauliflower ears or hoarse voices. Just our fingers!

During the hour I, as the registered dietitian facilitator, get group members to share their weeks’ weight loss wows and woes (with no mention of pounds lost). I deliver key content to help arm people with nutrition, fitness and psychological expertise to lose weight and (hopefully) keep it off. Topics range from how to get moving more each day, to tactics to deal with emotional eating, to healthy choices when eating out, and much more.

Yes, it’s Diabetes Alert Day, but who are all these red flags aimed at and to do what?

Who?
Around the world the who to alert on Diabetes Alert Day is hundreds of millions of people. The International Diabetes Federation offers tons of global facts and stats. Suffice to say there’s a type 2 diabetes tsunami already well on it’s way!

In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s  (CDC) National Diabetes Fact Sheet tells us exactly who Diabetes Alert Day is targeted to:

7 million of the 26 million people with diabetes WHO do not yet know they have diabetes. If any of these 7 million people were tested today, they could be diagnosed with diabetes. For most of these people, it’s type 2 diabetes. (26 million people with diabetes represents over 8% of our population.)

70+ million people WHO could be diagnosed with prediabetes today. (Yes, you read this number correctly. Of the estimated 79 million Americans with prediabetes (that’s 35% of American adults), only 8% (and that’s being generous) know they have prediabetes and research shows not even half of these individuals (or their healthcare providers) are taking preventive efforts to slow it’s progression (Learn more in my blog Prediabetes, But Nearly No One Knows It.)

This is one in a series of book reviews. You may find these books beneficial if you: manage prediabetes or diabetes, follow a diabetes meal plan and/or try to eat healthy to live well. These book reviews also appear on amazon.com. The books I’ve reviewed here can be found in my amazon a-store. Please check them out and consider a purchase.

Go unDiet – a catchy, succinct title. But what’s inside this book, which on the cover promises 50 Small Actions for Lasting Weight Loss? Cut to the chase, easy-to-digest, common-sense tips to get away from “dieting” and on to slowly changing your eating habits towards healthy – once and for all. The author, Gloria Tsang, RD is a well respected dietitian, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the popular online nutrition website HealthCastle.com.

Tsang and I agree on a lot, particularly unDiet’s basic premises, she says:

This guest blog was written on request for appforhealth.com in response to Julie's blog A Week to Beat Your Cravings for Sweets. I want to thank Julie for being open to dialoging about key nutrition topics:

Can people be “sugar addicted”? Not likely! But are we slurping, sipping and chewing too much sugar? Absolutely!

American Heart Association research shows that as of 2009 Americans down, on average, 22 teaspoons of sugar per day (Dietary sugars intake and cardiovascular health. (Not surprising when one 20 ounce soft drink contains 15 teaspoons!)

Suffice to say, dramatic changes have occurred in our understanding of the onset and progression of prediabetes over the last decade. Lightening speed changes have also occurred regarding the therapies available to achieve optimal blood glucose control.

However, even with all of this change many old dogmas hang on. It’s time to be aware of the new realities. Here I’ve focused on two common old dogmas and the new realities.

Suffice to say, dramatic changes have occurred in our understanding of the onset and progression of prediabetes over the last decade. Lightening speed changes have also occurred regarding the therapies available to achieve optimal blood glucose control.

However, even with all of this change many old dogmas hang on. It’s time to be aware of the new realities.  Here I’ve focused on two common old dogmas and the new realities.