Meet HNT Indiana's Intern: Brittany LoCoco

Meet Brittany LoCoco. She is majoring in Dietetics at Purdue and will graduate in May.  She started her college career at IU majoring in Exercise Science with the hopes of becoming a Physical Therapist.  She was required to take an introduction nutrition class and fell in love!  Upon her decision to transfer to Purdue she switched to Dietetics and has been following her passion ever since.  She has gotten a lot of grief for transferring from IU to Purdue, but says it was the best decision she could have made.  While at Purdue she was able to pursue her passion of nutrition and meet her future husband, Tyler.  

After graduating and becoming a Registered Dietitian, she would like to work in weight management.  More specifically, she desires to help people live long, happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives.  Brittany enjoys cooking, experimenting with new recipes, reading, traveling and spending time with friends, family, and my fiancé.  Avocados are her favorite food and she will eat them with almost anything.  She is a strong believer in fitting any foods into a healthful diet because moderation is key!  

Top Reason To Use a Food Scale

There are many food scales out there that have a million different functions from weighing food to breaking down the nutritional components (ie. number of carbohydrates, etc).  While the extra functions are worth while, the top reason to use a food scale is to be able to figure calories, especially if you are looking for weight loss.  Even though the extra functions may be beneficial to some, we teach our patients to utilize a food scale for most foods to determining calories.  

Take a banana for example.  If you look a banana up in any calorie book it will say size: medium calories: x.  Someone please tell me what a medium sized banana is! My medium is different from your medium and the book may say 6-7" but not all bananas are the same girth.  The way to solve this problem is to weigh the banana and calculate the number of calories per ounce or gram and then the number of calories for the entire banana.  A much more accurate way to take a measurement.  We know estimating is key, but we are not always good estimators if we don't have reference for which we are estimating.  Bananas being easy to travel with and one of the more popular fruits are also one of the most calorie-dense fruits.  If we underestimate and consume a lot of them, we could be making a very inaccurate estimate.  This inaccuracy becomes a real problem when it happens over and over again or with foods that can be higher in calories like meat. 

We recommend a standard digital scale that you can get at any department store for around $20-$30 like this one below.  However, if you look HERE, there are a million different types and styles. 

image source

Use the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference to assist you in your quest for accurately measuring calories.  The example in the link is the banana.  The gram measurements are much more accurate than size measurements.  

April is Cancer Control Month

Do you know your risk? Do you know how to manage that risk?  The key to surviving cancer is early detection.  There are 5 types of cancer that have recommended screenings: breast, cervical, colorectal, prostate, and skin. 

Recommended Screenings Include:

Breast Cancer: 

• Mammogram: Every year beginning at age 40
• Clinical Breast Exam: Every 3 years for women in 20's & 30's. Every year beginning at age 40
• Breast Self-Exam: Beginning in 20's

Cervical Cancer:

• Pap Test: Every year for women age 21-65 (or younger if sexually active)

Colorectal Cancer:

• Fecal Occult Blood Test (FOBT): Every year beginning at age 50
• Flexible Sigmoidoscopy: Every 5 years beginning at age 50
• Double Contrast Baruim Enema (DCBE): Every 5 years beginning at age 50
• Colonosopy: Every 10 years beginning at age 50

Prostate Cancer: 

• Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Blood Test: Men ages 50+, high risk should start at age 45
• Digital Rectal Exam (DRE): Men ages 50+, high risk should start at age 45

Skin Cancer:

• Clinical Skin Exam: Every 3 years from ages 20-40, Every year ages 40+

Click HERE for some dietary and activity tips from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to reduce the risk of cancer.  Are you already doing the recommended screenings to help prevent cancer for your age?  If not, get at least one on the calendar.

The HNT Staff