Paula Deen, Who's Diabetic, Drops Two Sizes - East Idaho News

Paula Deen, Who’s Diabetic, Drops Two Sizes

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Getty 022812 PaulaDeen?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1330458697259Serg Alexander/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Six weeks after announcing she had type 2 diabetes, Paula Deen said she’s shedding weight by moving more and eating less.

“I’ve dropped two pant sizes, and I feel great,” the 64-year-old Food Network cooking show host told People.

Deen said she’s walking for 30 minutes every day and cutting her food portions in half. She doesn’t know how much she weighs — “We don’t own a scale in our house,” she told the magazine — but said she’d find out at her next checkup.

“Every six months I go for a physical and find out,” she said.

Deen has known about her type 2 diabetes for three years, but only made it public in January.

“I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest,” she told USA Today at the time. “I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn’t armed with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time, it would be in God’s time.”

After she went public with her diabetes, Deen launched a new campaign, “Diabetes in a New Light,” a partnership with diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk. Deen reportedly takes the company’s drug Victoza to help her maintain proper blood sugar levels.

About 26 million Americans have diabetes, a number expected to skyrocket as the boomer population gets older.  Type 2 diabetes is most common in people who are genetically predisposed to the condition, and who are obese and physically inactive, according to Carla Wolper, senior clinical nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan.

“Should Paula Deen lose a lot of weight and influence others to do so, and should she show those who watch her show how to do it? She could become a goddess,” said Wolper.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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