By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
The challenge of being a dietician, says Lorren Negrin, is how people perceive her profession as a bunch of people saying “we want you to go on a diet.”
But, really, she explains, “I’m all about moderation and no diets.”
The Seattle Pacific University grad who did her internship at Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland, recently started her own business, Say I Do Nutrition Services with her partner Shena Washburn (www.sayidonutrition.com).
“I’m at the age where a lot of my friends are getting married,” she says, and she couldn’t help noticing that in their efforts to look “beautiful and gorgeous” in their wedding gowns, many of those friends were engaging in some, frankly, odd weight-loss techniques.
“One friend ate Doritos, but spit them out,” Lorren recalls. Another ordered Mexican dishes without chips, tortillas, rice or beans — “basically chicken and lettuce.” Another planned on fasting for three days before her wedding.
“I couldn’t have my friends doing this,” Lorren says, and started teaching them healthy weight-loss and maintenance methods (one friend lost 30 pounds). From there she jumped to helping “everyone, not just my friends,” she says.
Lorren also works part-time at Harborview Medical Center where she sees a range of patients with illnesses from diabetes to heart disease, along with obese children and babies who aren’t eating. Before Harborview, she worked at Kline Galland for a while.
The two dieticians have been giving a lot of talks recently. One is coming up on May 1, at the Eastside Torah Center’s “Spring Spa for Your Body and Soul” workshop (www.chabadbellevue.org). When not working, you’ll find the Newport High School alum doting on her Yorkie puppy and going to hockey games. She’s an active member of Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue, where she grew up.
She and Shena practice what they preach, in case you wondered.
“Our philosophy is that you can eat anything you want…in moderation,” she says. “I still eat cookies, I still eat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I don’t have five, I just have one.”
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Don’t we all love Paris in the spring? Olympia residents Harold (Hal) and Inge Marcus do, and will travel there and to Israel on the American Technion Society Mission from May 29 to June 10. They will take in the splendors of Paris and the wonders of Israel all in support of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Israel’s leading science and technology university.
As vice-chair of ATS’ Northwest chapter (North Pacific region), Hal serves on the ATS international board of governors and the national board of directors.
An industrial engineer by training, he has a long commitment to bringing medicine and science together with technology and engineering. In 1995 he and Inge created the Marcus International Exchange in Industrial Engineering to foster interdisciplinary research between Penn State’s College of Engineering and the Technion.
“My husband and I admire the Technion for the critical role it plays in building Israel’s economy, particularly its high-tech industry,” says Inge, who retired from Tacoma’s Pacific Lutheran University as an assistant professor of biology. She is also in ATS’ North Pacific Chapter, and is a member of the President’s Council at St. Martin’s University.
“Technion’s laboratories are state-of-the art,” she notes, “its faculty boasts Nobel Prize winners, and its often-interdisciplinary approach is exhilarating.”
But back to Paris. Hal says the trip will be “very eye-opening,” especially “for first-time visitors to either Paris or Israel.” Along with the usual landmarks, the ATS group will “have access to important places and people that you would not have on your own,” including a dinner with Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë at City Hall (Hotel de Ville).
The trip visits the Marais, the old Jewish quarter, where Jewish sites, trendy boutiques and pastry shops now mix. The Holocaust Museum, a meeting with the chief rabbi of Paris and the Great Synagogue of Paris are all on the itinerary. The Marcuses can look forward to dinner at a 17th-century chateau and cruising the Seine on a private yacht.
The Israel portion includes a midnight walk to the Western Wall and celebrating Shavuot in the Negev. But for Hal and Inge, the visits to Technion are probably the most exciting part.
“To actually be in the labs with the professors and have them explain their research and demonstrate their advances is an incredible experience,” Hal says.
There may still be time to go, but the next best thing might be the video at www.ats.org, under the “events” tab, and you can learn more about the organization there, too. For more specific information, contact Jack Kadesh, North Pacific-Northwest Chapter director at 415-398-7117 or jack@ats.org.