Proposals from the pros

THE

Daily News

consulted a slew of Philly's top diabetes researchers and clinicians to bring you this special section. It's no surprise that they all showed an understanding of the complex microbiology of the disease, since they're all respected experts - many with national or even international reputations.

What caught us off guard was their frank and practical advice for those with diabetes to eat right and exercise to control the disease. Here, four august whitecoats channel their inner Heloise, with handy tips to try:

Buy a good scale. Dr. Guenther Boden, chief of the division of endocrinology at Temple University Hospital, advises people with diabetes to eat just a little less, and aim to lose only a pound or two a week.

"How can you do that? You have to buy a scale," he says.

And you have to use it religiously: "Out of bed. In the nude. On the scale. Every morning," Boden says. "It gets you to your goal."

You'll want one that shows 1/2-pound increments so you can fine-tune your diet at the first sign of weight-creep. Give it a test-drive in the store by stepping onto it six or seven times, always starting with the same foot. (It matters.)

"If you get the same weight five times, it's a good scale," Boden says.

Eat more soup. If you want to lose weight, "the long and short of it is that the emphasis has to be on calories: Calories, calories, calories," says Dr. Rex Ahima, director of the obesity unit at Penn's Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

Learn to look for calories on food labels. Then, to feel satisfied without consuming so many of them, try starting the biggest meal of your day with a homemade broth-and-vegetable soup.

"It's all water, so you're full," Ahima says. (If you don't have a recipe, Weight Watchers' popular Zero Points Soup is a good introduction to the genre.)

Better yet, Ahima says, have soup at two meals a day. Personally, he enjoys a broth-based medley of greens, mushrooms and carrots. Besides filling you up, soup can help you meet your daily produce quota, he notes.

Eat less to live more. At the end of the day, it all comes down to calories, agrees Dr. Intekhab Ahmed, a diabetes expert at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and president of the Philadelphia Endocrine Society. It can be useful to imagine that you've been granted a set amount of food to consume on the day you're born, he says, and that on the day you finish, you die.

Under this scenario, eating smaller portions at every sitting would buy you more time on earth, which Ahmed says is essentially the case in real life since obesity shortens life expectancy.

Tune in to TV soul line-dancing. Exercise burns calories, which helps you lose weight, and it also lowers your blood sugar.

"Any movement is good," says Nadine Uplinger, director of the Gutman Diabetes Institute at Albert Einstein Medical Center. What's important is to find an activity that you enjoy.

DJ "Broadway" Butch Thomas' hourlong Soul Line Revue, televised by Comcast at 11 p.m. Tuesdays on Channels 18 and 44, is a workout alternative that seems to click with Uplinger's female patients, she says. Others like shimmying to the oldies while they do housework.

"Act silly. It doesn't matter," Uplinger says. "No one's watching." Don't even pretend you'll jog. "It's not going to happen," Ahima says. Buy a pedometer and commit to walking 10,000 steps a day, an exercise habit that is far more likely to stick. For strength training, he suggests working out in the comfort of your own home with an exercise ball or inexpensive elastic resistance bands. *