Keith's Story

Four years ago, 47-year-old Keith Simmons was diagnosed with diabetes. Over time, he and his doctor managed to stabilize his blood sugar but, at 310 pounds, his physician still wanted him to lose weight. She recommended he make an appointment with a dietitian with the Baylor University Medical Center Outpatient Nutrition Counseling Services to learn better ways to manage food. The flatbed truck driver was agreeable because, although he says he is “pretty spry,” it had become harder to throw the tarps and chains on his truck and, “it was harder to get my golf swing around my gut.”

He met with one of the Baylor dietitians in early January and he learned one of his biggest problems was that he was not eating often enough. “I love breakfast foods, but I just don't like to eat first thing in the morning,” he says. “Instead I was used to eating once or twice a day, but eating like a shark until I felt full. I could eat a lot of food.”

Instead, Keith learned to eat small meals throughout the day. “I did what the dietitians told me and wrote everything down that I ate starting Jan. 2,” says Keith. “When I changed the way I eat, I realized the amount of food I now eat for a day, was the amount I used to eat for lunch but I'm not hungry all the time.”

His new food plan also allowed him to eat some foods that he used to consider off limits because of his diabetes. “Because I wasn't eating as often, before eating an apple or banana would send my blood sugar through the roof,” says Keith. “Now I can eat those things that I never thought I could before.”

Being on the road 275 days a year presents Keith with a challenge in planning his snacks and meals. The Baylor dieticians taught him to shop for healthy snacks and pre-bag things to keep with him on the truck. “I mix trail mix with dried fruit or mixed nuts with cashews and almonds,” he says. “I wasn't getting enough vegetables, so I started taking the single-serve canned vegetables.”
Keith says even in the first three months of changing his eating habits, he feels stronger and can work harder and for longer periods of time. Between Jan. 2, 2007 and March 12, 2007, he went from 318 pounds to 288 pounds. “I am down a full pant size and my blood sugar is astronomically low,” he adds. “This is not a diet. It is changing the way I do things. I don't look at this as a diet, I look at it as going back to my life.”

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