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In part 3 of this Exclusive Interview, Dr. W. Timothy Garvey talks with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed during the AACE 2018 convention in Boston, MA about the importance of good nutrition and physical activity, and which may be the more effective action.
W. Timothy Garvey, MD, FACE is a professor and Director of the University of Alabama Diabetes Research Center in Birmingham.
Transcript of this video segment:
Freed: Nutrition and physical activity are important components of obesity. If you had to put a percentage on it to show the importance, you know, 80 percent nutrition, 20 percent physical activity, to you, what would it be?
Garvey: The bottom line is a reduced calorie diet. If you are not eating less calories, one way or the other, you are not going to lose weight and achieve the therapeutic goals. So, you need a reduced caloric diet. Now, exercise is a caloric expenditure but it’s relatively minor in terms of the grand scheme of things. Exercise is important, though, particularly for weight loss maintenance. It also improves health in general and makes you feel better and improves your morale. Exercise is definitely part of the lifestyle therapy plan as well as behavioral modifications like recording your weight and your activity and your food intake – just the act of self-recording is an important behavior that helps us to sustain part of a successful lifestyle intervention plan. It’s all designed to help patients adhere to a reduced calorie meal plan. In the end, that’s what medications do as well. So, I would say, the nutritional aspect, a meal plan, is the most important component.
Freed: Can I ask you a personal question?
Garvey: Sure.
Freed: What do you do for physical activity?
Garvey: I am a member of the YMCA and I do an elliptical three times a week and do some light resistance exercise with the Nautilus-type machines and listen to Netflix TV series when I am on the elliptical. So that is what I do.
Freed: I’m a firm believer that you have to do it if you tell your patients to do it?
Garvey: (Laughs) Yes, that’s right.