This month, Office Hours, will present Summer Starts Here: Camps for all Ages, hosted by Melissa Gaynor, RDN, CDE.

Melissa is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) and Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) who has been living with type 1 diabetes since the age of 11. She is the Program Coordinator for NYU Langone Health’s Pediatric Diabetes Center in Brooklyn, New York. She is responsible for creating and developing the center’s educational programs and providing patient care at both the Brooklyn and Manhattan offices.

Before her career in healthcare, Melissa worked in media and played guitar in an indie rock band. When a close friend was diagnosed with diabetes, she quickly realized her passion for providing nutrition and diabetes education. She supported her friend, “practiced what she preached”, improved her own control, AND lost 30lbs in the process. She went on to become an RDN and CDE and was eventually hired as a pediatric nutritionist and diabetes educator at the same practice where she was first diagnosed!

In 2016 Melissa attended Diabetes Training Camp – an athletics camp for people with diabetes — in hopes of learning new ways of approaching exercise while maintaining steady blood sugars (which previously seemed like a very complicated, daunting task). Melissa not only gained new skills for doing so, but also a new attitude about living with diabetes and lifelong friends. Melissa went from being a camp alumnus to a part of the DTC staff in 2016. Using what she’s learned at camp, she has become a committed gym rat (5-6 times per week), where she enjoys a variety of programs including her favorite work out Barrys’s Bootcamp, general HIIT, cross-training classes, running, and more. She was even able to apply the mental skills and training techniques learned at camp to tightly manage her blood sugars and exercise daily during her pregnancy.

When she is not spending time with her family, you can find this indie rocker-turned-athlete-mom doing anything from riding her peloton, long distance running, listening to live music, attending comedy shows, or eating pizza on the couch. Melissa believes the key to a healthy lifestyle is balance!

Sponsored by Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone

Betsy Paffmann, Sr. Outreach Manager
(516) 939-1511 | bpaffmann@jdrf.org