What Diet Plans Does Your Mom’s Doctor Recommend

With a new year come goals that range from getting more exercise, staying organized, or making healthier choices at meal time. This year, your mom’s doctor wants her to lose weight and improve her dietary habits. Whether she needs to lower her sodium intake or cut saturated fats, learn what diet plans doctors recommend.

DASH Diet

If your mom is after a diet that is heart healthy and helps with diabetes and high blood pressure, the DASH Diet is a good choice. It stands for the “Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension.” She needs to eat more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and lean protein.

She needs to stop eating full-fat dairy, fatty meats, sugar, and tropical oils like palm oil. In addition, her sodium intake will not exceed 1,500 once she’s adjusted to the diet.

Flexitarian Diet

The Flexitarian Diet may meet your mom’s approval as it’s relatively easy to follow and least restrictive. Instead of having the meals she’s used to with a meat, vegetables, and starch, she mixes up days. Four or five days a week, she eats vegetarian or vegan meals. The rest of the week, she has meals that she’s craving like a burger and baked fries or baked fish and chips.

Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet patterns weekly menus after what people in Mediterranean countries eat. It focuses on vegetables, olive oil, garlic, nuts, and seafood. Sugar, red meat, and saturated fat are omitted from regular consumption. Whole grains are okay, but all-purpose flour and things like baguettes are avoided.

With the Mediterranean Diet, your mom will enjoy meals like a seafood stew that’s cooked with saffron, garlic, olive oil, bell peppers, and fresh tomatoes. It’s unique in that a small glass of red wine is also acceptable each day.

MIND Diet

Finally, the MIND Diet combines the DASH and Mediterranean diets. It’s designed to help the brain stay healthy by focusing on foods like leafy greens, berries, nuts, and seafood. The MIND Diet is low-carb, so it may help her with weight loss if that’s one of her goals.

Is your mom struggling to prepare meals? Does she have a hard time grocery shopping by herself? A senior care aide can help her with both of these. Have senior care providers help her create shopping lists, drive her to the store, and help her read labels and choose foods that meet her dietary goals.

After shopping, a senior care aide can carry in the groceries, put them away, and prepare her meals. Talk to her doctor about her diet and then make arrangements for meal preparation and transportation services.

If you are considering Senior Care Services in Upper Sandusky OH, please contact the caring staff at Med1Care. Located in Toledo and Findlay. Serving clients in all of northern Ohio including Bowling Green, Bryan, Bucyrus, Celina, Defiance, Findlay, Fremont, Kenton, Lima, Lorain, Mansfield, Marion, Mount Gilead, Napoleon, Norwalk, Ottawa, Paulding, Port Clinton, Sandusky, Tiffin, Toledo, Upper Sandusky, Van Wert, Wapakoneta, Wauseon and all nearby areas. Toledo 419.866.0555 | Findlay 419.422.0305