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SMALL STEPS BIG DIFFERENCE - PREVENTING DIABETES IS WITHIN YOUR REACH - Featured Image

Current Moveable Feast client, Roger*, has numerous chronic disease diagnoses, and has struggled to manage his diabetes. Roger, like many of our clients, has limited access to healthy foods and has limited mobility. These barriers make it difficult to manage chronic diseases.

Roger is not alone, in Maryland, 12.6% of the adult population have diabetes, and an additional 36.9% have pre-diabetes. 1 Last year, more than a third of those served by Moveable Feast had a diagnosis of diabetes. Though diabetes can lead to severe consequences, including kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, blindness and even death; type 2 diabetes can be prevented and or managed.

Getting to and maintaining a healthy weight is important. This can be done by getting regular exercise and following a healthy eating plan. Following a healthy eating plan includes eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, limiting added sweets and highly processed foods, and watching portion sizes. Exercising 30 minutes, 5 days a week is recommended, though getting any kind of regular movement is a great start. Smoking cessation is also important in diabetes prevention. Consistency is key!


Roger started receiving Moveable Feast meals last fall and completed his nutrition assessment with Community Dietitian, Olivia Massa. He had already started his journey to healthier eating but was encountering some obstacles along the way. During his medical nutrition therapy sessions with Olivia,

Roger learned about the importance of managing portion size and how that affects his blood glucose readings. They talked about small changes that would lead to better diabetes control now and in the future. For our clients who have diabetes, “It is so important to meet the client where they are; some have been diagnosed with diabetes for many years and some have a new diagnosis; some have had previous education on how to manage their diabetes with the foods they eat and some have not,” states Olivia. Armed with new knowledge and with achievable but ambitious goals in place, Roger was ready and willing to make some changes.

A few months went by, and Roger and Olivia were able to talk again. Roger was excited to share his progress! By incorporating the Moveable Feast meals into his daily eating plan and with Olivia’s guidance and advice, Roger was able control his blood sugars and his meal portion size. He reports he is even washing out the Moveable Feast meal containers and saving them to portion out food he makes on his own. Although it was tough at first to make changes like limiting sweets and soda, Roger was able to stick with it and instead of these changes being drastic and overwhelming, it became his normal routine. Consistency truly is key, and Roger is a great example of how small changes helped to manage his diabetes and overall health.

*Name has been changed


1) http://main.diabetes.org/dorg/PDFs/Advocacy/burden-of-diabetes/maryland.pdf


https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/diabetes-stat-
report.html#:~:text=34.2%20million%20Americans%E2%80%94just%20over,Asians%20and%20non%2D
Hispanic%20whites.

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