What's good to eat? Ask the nutritional therapist
The Cape Codder

Picture forthcoming, Photo courtesy of The Cape Codder
Maggie Davis has been in the nutrition field for 30 years - long enough to see the Atkins diet flop in the 1970s and become the rage in the new millennium - and has seen a lot of changes over the years.

Mary Schultz calls herself a typical Italian; she has a love affair with cooking and eating.
"I was going to live forever and have a lasagna in the oven," she remembers with a laugh. Then she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and life as she knew it came to a screeching halt.
"I was definitely in denial," the Chatham self-ascribed baby boomer explained. "It's horribly difficult for someone who, if they had their choice, their three times a day meal would be bread, wine and cheese."
Her primary care doctor suggested she see Margaret "Maggie" Davis, of Brewster's Live Nutrition.
And after six months working with Davis - "I immediately felt like I had not only found someone that was able to give me the information that I needed, I had also found a friend" - Schultz's blood sugar has come down 130 points and, perhaps more importantly, she is now able to introduce bread, pasta and rice to her diet.
"I'm like a new person," Schultz said. "She saved my life."
Davis, who has an office on Wampum Road, is much in demand lately. Much like the rest of the country, the Cape has been swept up in the craze to eat right, with diets like South Beach and Atkins on the best seller lists. That phenomenon is equally matched by those who are ballooning in size, with 34 percent of adults in the country classified as overweight and an additional 37 percent tipping the scales at obese.
Those factors, and others, have made life busy for one of the few nutritionists on the Cape.
Davis said in the last two years she has seen a big jump in clients, but in the last six months her practice has really exploded.
"I am working Saturdays now," she said, adding that she has hired an assistant and works with another nutritionist who deals solely with seniors.
The focus on dieting has also convinced Stacey Richmond, of Richmond Nutrition Centers in Yarmouth and Plymouth, to concentrate on working with people with eating disorders. A number that is also increasing rapidly, particularly among young people.
"The definition is widening, it's not (just) a 17-year-old female," she said. Her husband Blaine, who manages the business, says they are seeing more and more young boys, some as young as 12.
"It's another symptom of our culture," he said.
Stacey Richmond pointed out that children today are growing up in a society where it's abnormal not be preoccupied with food, or not be on a specific food regimen.
"It's a generation where dieting is the norm," she said.
Both Davis and Richmond don't like the word diet.
They consider themselves nutritional therapists because they realize that changing the way you eat can mean changing your lifestyle, behavior and sometimes your perception of food.
"If you want people to change what they are eating, you just don't hand them a piece of paper," Davis said.
And making life changes is not always easy, especially in today's day and age.
Davis has been in the nutrition field for 30 years - long enough to see the Atkins diet flop in the 1970s and become the rage in the new millennium - and has seen a lot of changes over the years.
Some, such as the fact one can now buy arugula at the grocery store, have been good, others have not. For one, diabetes is on the rise. Davis has 200-pound, 12-year-olds coming in with Type 2 diabetes; years ago she never saw anyone under 50 with the disease.
Davis attributes the mushrooming of the disease to poor diet and lack of exercise. Decades ago, basically everyone had the same meal, it was a Donna Reed type of society with pork chops one night, Prince Spaghetti on Wednesday, she said.
There wasn't a legion of snack foods, and the Dunkin' Donuts craze hadn't popped up on every street corner.
"It just wasn't in your face," she said, adding that to get a muffin or a doughnut one had to go to a bakery.
And of course, people were more active. They walked more, and spent more time outside.
Portion sizes are also an issue.
"(People say) I only have one coffee, but it's a quart," she said.
When Davis started in the field, there were nutritionists, but they mostly worked with cardiac and medical patients. Nutrition for weight loss was minimal, she said.
Today, Davis said, new nutritional studies are released hourly. Her first job in the field was as a researcher and she had to hunt for nutritional information; now people can get buried in the thousands of articles.
There is just so much information out there and much of it is conflicting, she said. One day you'll read this much caffeine is good and the next day that it's bad.
"I consider myself a translator for my patients," she said. "I read a lot of journals; it's kind of my leisure activity."
Davis, who has myriad diet and health books filling her office, doesn't pooh pooh the best sellers.
All of the books have something of value in them, she said. But nutritionists will work with individuals to find out what strategy works best for them and what they want to accomplish.
"You have 50-year-old men not eating any fiber and it's not a good situation," she said.
Davis will do an assessment and figure out what a client's goals are, and what his or her life is like. The person's lifestyle is really important, she said.
She sees a lot of young retirees who want to keep their cholesterol down, be healthy and enjoy themselves, perhaps play golf.
Bob Spidle is one of those retirees.
He said he had been eating skinless chicken for years, but at 58 he had developed some health issues and wanted to continue to enjoy life to the fullest. His family doctor recommended Davis and he set up an appointment, even though he had no idea what a nutritionist did.
"She was wonderful from the get-go," Spidle said. "She wanted to know what my normal diet was like and made suggestions.
She got me into exercise, which is a pretty good trick."
"I'm too selfish to give up on my quality of life and, trust me, it's not that hard to do," Spidle added. "I just can't get over how much better I feel."
Davis explained that maintaining the changes is often the hardest part for people. So she tries to make it as easy as possible, with field trips to the grocery store, and cooking suggestions. Microwaves are fine, she said, adding that she has clients that range from cookbook authors to people who can't boil water.
Schultz said she'll call Davis any time, day or night, from the grocery store with questions, such as, "I just found these salmon pinwheels? Are they all right?"
Stacey Richmond, who has been a nutritionist for close to a decade, has the same committed relationship with her clients.
She'll work with the client on the hows and whys of eating, and collaborates with a treatment team.
"What we do is not the quick fix," said Blaine Richmond. "It's definitely a permanent change."
Lisa Estabrooks, a yo-yo dieter whose weight could fluctuate between 50 and 100 pounds, agrees.
"She is not a pill," Estabrooks said of Stacey, explaining that she sat down with Richmond and discussed what triggers overeating and how to combat it.
"She is a very safe place to go to discuss a very miserable topic. There is nothing you can say that will shock her," Estabrooks said. "I truly feel like she cares about my success."
And Estabrooks has had success. She has gone a year without yo-yoing or bingeing.
"We are turning a corner, I can start to lose the weight without slipping back to my old ways," Estabrooks said.