Spring into Action: Diabetes Lifestyle Goals

And then thinking about the spring, the spring months, a spring often inspires fresh goals. What changes do your patients with diabetes tend to focus on? Any goals that they share with you regularly? Yes, people are people are feeling much much more inspired. The sun is shining hopefully, they're more likely to be meeting up with friends and family and people are much more likely to be wanting to make changes. We try at this time of year to once again set educational meetings up so that we can do some regular checks to see what changes they could make. So we do some blood tests, we arrange for them to come in and see the nurses. And based on their blood tests and so on, we discuss making medication changes, which hopefully won't mean too many medication changes, or reducing their medication because they may be exercising more, they may be going for more walks outdoors. There are more daylight hours, so it's much, much better for them to be going out into the parks and generally moving more. Thank you. And what would you say to our members who have diabetes, who are part of the health shared community, in terms of trying to motivate them to take on new health goals in the spring? Well, we start very much with setting smart goals. So little steps, making things measurable, not going, you know, patients sometimes say, oh I'm going to lose a great deal of weight, but trying to get them to set a target for weight loss if that's what they want to do. but working in partnership with patients to set up goals for them, improving their diet, improving their activity, and focusing much more on the four pillars of health and not just on medication. So looking much more at nutrition, relaxation, and sleep, as well as movement and activity. Thank you. And of the eight health behaviours and 12 characteristics, is there one that your patients with diabetes seem to connect with most? Well, it's difficult to say because we try and encourage them to connect with all eight. I suppose stress management is something that is often regarded as being quite challenging and engaging with.