08/12/2026
More than a year ago, Denise Schmitz found herself in a rut.
With a busy schedule, her nights were spent eating frozen pizzas or fish sticks, and staying sedentary, except for a couple of times per month when a friend wanted to walk around Hoxie and chat.
Schmitz and her doctor knew it was time for a change. Last year, she was enrolled in a yearlong Food is Medicine program as a Type 2 diabetic with high blood pressure and gut issues.
Today, she’s 30 pounds lighter, is sleeping more soundly, feels better mentally, has learned to read labels to find gut-happy foods and has seen her A1c — an important marker of blood sugar control — drop by 3 points. If she keeps exercising and maintaining a healthy diet, she should be off her blood pressure medicine by August.
“It was a great program — especially for us older people, because we are used to cooking mashed potatoes with chicken and noodles,” Schmitz said. “We can’t eat that way anymore. We need to eat better.”
Read the full article from the KLC Journal
