The diabetic diet plan
The rationale for recommending a 1,800-calorie diet is that it can initiate weight loss by making the patient maintain a calorie deficit. Based on Nam Nguyen’s health information, his weight is about 75 kg (Treas et al., 2017). As per a very rough estimate, he would need to consume around 2,200-2,300 calories daily to maintain this weight, given that he does not live a sedentary lifestyle. Apart from obesity treatment, the recommended calorie intake can be beneficial in terms of the man’s knee osteoarthritis outcomes. If he needs surgical treatment for osteoarthritis, it will be much easier to implement after weight loss, and weight loss can also help to reduce knee pain by easing the pressure on the patient’s joints (Kulkarni et al., 2016).
The diagnosis of type II diabetes is the primary reason behind the selection of the diabetic diet plan. Dietary changes, such as reducing/excluding certain foods, are among the key lifestyle changes recommended to control blood sugar, so the diabetic diet plan would be helpful to prevent complications in Nam Nguyen’s case (Treas et al., 2017). Regarding the absence of added salt, this component is part of the standard approach to hypertension treatment and can lower the man’s cardiovascular risks.
Patient education session
To streamline the instructions regarding the proposed diet, Zach might conduct a brief patient education session to explain the different components of the diet. To avoid confusion, he might introduce the components discussed above one by one and then explain that diabetic dietary guidelines and the requirement to avoid added salt are easily combined into one comprehensive plan (Treas et al., 2017). Also, it might be important to identify the family member that usually does cooking and grocery shopping and communicate information about the recommended dietary principles to this person. Due to visiting patient education events together with Nam, his relatives would manage to support him with implementing the diet. It is reasonable to involve his family since the Nguens would be supposed to make decisions regarding making separate meals for Nam and the rest of the family. To support Nam and reduce the time needed for cooking, the family might want to follow certain principles of Nam’s diet (more vegetables/fruits/whole-grain foods, etc.), thus making sure that the products recommended for him are always present at home.
Scales
In the absence of precise medical scales, Nam would be able to use bathroom scales at home and measure his weight every week. This method is not perfect since bathroom scales do not measure changes in body fat percentage accurately, but this approach is easy to implement at home. Moreover, Nam can measure his waist circumference at home to spot any progress. As for Zach’s efforts to monitor Nam’s progress, he can use precise medical scales or find the providers of hydrostatic weighing services to keep track of Nam’s weight and fat percentage (Treas et al., 2017). Additionally, considering other diagnoses apart from obesity, Zach will monitor the client’s progress by taking blood pressure and blood glucose measurements, as well as ordering lab tests if necessary (Treas et al., 2017).
The teaching tools
The teaching tools to be used in Nam’s case should come from professional and credible sources. The diabetes placemat by the American Diabetes Association (n.d.a) can be used to explain the basics of planning meals and determining the size of portions to Nam. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) also provides meal planning guidelines for diabetics. To make sure that Nam distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate products, it is possible to use the resources devoted to reading and understanding food labels (ADA, n.d.b.). Next, it is possible that Nam does not understand how to reduce his sodium consumption to a minimum. To help him, it is possible to use the cookbook by the American Heart Association (2018) that offers a range of low-salt recipes.
References
American Diabetes Association. (n.d.a). Diabetes placemat. Web.
American Diabetes Association. (n.d.b.). Reading food labels: Making sense of food labels. Web.
American Heart Association. (2018). Low-salt cookbook: A complete guide to reducing sodium and fat in your diet (4th ed.). Author. Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Diabetes meal planning. Web.
Kulkarni, K., Karssiens, T., Kumar, V., & Pandit, H. (2016). Obesity and osteoarthritis. Maturitas, 89, 22-28.
Musso, N., Conte, L., Carloni, B., Campana, C., Chiusano, M. C., & Giusti, M. (2018). Low-salt intake suggestions in hypertensive patients do not jeopardize urinary iodine excretion. Nutrients, 10(10), 1-8.
Treas, L. S., Wilkinson, J. M., Barnett, K. L., & Smith, M. H. (2017). Basic nursing: Thinking, doing, and caring (2nd ed.). F. A. Davis Company.