Sharing Success: Lori Holland

Last year I was very depressed about the way I looked and felt. I was around 70 lbs over weight and felt completely hopeless after trying and failing so many diet plans. I was obsessed with tv shows like The Biggest Loser and A&E’s Heavy. When Heavy started filming at Hilton Head Health, I kept saying to myself, Hilton Head’s just a few hours away. In April, I decided I was going to go spend a week there after school got out. So I booked my week in June and began to think that there was hope.

During my week there, I attended every informational class that was offered. I have worked out in gyms and taken various classes, so my primary concern was to get all of the accurate information I could get. This is where I learned about the H3@ Home Coaching program. I looked at that as a protection on my investment so that when I got home, when I had questions or problems, I would have someone to turn to. I was matched up with Amy Kelderhouse and we hit it off immediately.

How has H3@Home Coaching benefitted you?

When I got home, I did in fact have many questions and issues. I had a couple of injuries, sometimes challenges, and all kinds of general questions. Amy was always right there with fabulous solutions to every problem I encountered. With her guidance, I was walking 6 miles every day and planning good meals. I was having a horrible time with plantar fasciitis, which she gave me wonderful stretching exercises for. I remember telling her that during the third month of being at home, that everything hurts because I’m just old and tired. She reminded me of the book and class I had taken at Hilton Head Health called “Younger Next Year”. I had actually downloaded that book onto my iPad while I was in Hilton Head. I got it out and started reading it. Amy had been reminding me that I really needed to get my heart rate up while walking. Due to the plantar fasciitis, I just couldn’t walk any faster. But when reading the book, something clicked. I went out and bought a heart rate monitor and started riding my exercise bike. The first week I worked 20 minutes at the correct heart rate. I added 5 minutes each week until I had worked up to 45 minutes per day 6 days a week. The weight started falling off.

What successes can you attribute to wellness coaching and the continued at-home support?

I am now down a size in my clothing, have more energy and am feeling better in general. I plan my meals each Sunday for the week in order to eat correctly. My entire life has changed since attending Hilton Head Health and having Amy as my at home trainer. Previous to my visit, I was doing nothing. Now, I’m exercising 6 days a week without fail. Had I not had Amy, I don’t think I would’ve made it. The accountability along with the resources and help she gave me were/are invaluable. I am so incredibly grateful for having this opportunity.

Friday Fitness: It’s Never Too Late To Get Back In The Game

Hat tip to our avid reader Katha Kissman for finding this one!  Watch the vid and then read the commentary below.



Sure the point of the video was to show how exercise helps aging adults avoid disease.  But, we already knew that!  I think there was a more important lesson.  The Tigerettes aren’t exercising, they are PLAYING!  Exercise to me means drab elastic sweatpants, monotonous treadmill training and physical torture generally endured under solitary confinement.  Let’s spend some time this upcoming weekend playing.  Find a lonesome friend or loved one and kick, throw or shoot a ball.  Hell, who needs a ball, you can tag, race, swim, jump or crawl to a calorie burn.  But for God’s sake, stop sensationalizing exercise and start playing!

New Year, New You – The First Steps

Day 1: Make your list of New Year’s Resolutions based on S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

Day 2: Now what?

You may know that you want to start getting more active, eating better or lose a few pounds over the course of the year but sometimes it can be intimidating to start what can seem like such a daunting task. There’s always that fear that once you start, you could fail and what will that make you? Not a failure, but a student! You don’t know how to do something right until you do it wrong… and hey, you may get it wrong several times but that doesn’t make you a failure if you get right back up, learn from your mistakes and keep pushing.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

Conquering the Gym Fear

Gaining Some Perspective

Habits of Successful Weight Managers

Why Diets Fail and How Coaching Can Help

Planning Healthy Meals

Get Motivated!

Get Started TODAY! 10 Minute Workout!

Georgia's Solution to Childhood Obesity

While in Atlanta this past week visiting my family, I took in all the familiar sights and sounds of the city. I love looking at the bright lights and buildings during the Christmas season. One thing, however, caught my eye that I can’t seem to shake. As I was walking down the street with some friends, we passed a billboard with the image of a young girl and the words “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid” written next to her. With a shocked expression on my face, I told my friends to read the billboard and they replied that similar billboards were all over the place.
Other billboards read: “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.” “Big bones didn’t make me this way, big meals did.” “Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line.”
I have several issues with these messages.
Although childhood obesity is a serious issue, I believe these billboards are bringing more negative attention to this growing problem than good. One of the first things I learned while studying Public Health in school was that positive affirmations are more powerful than scare tactics. If the intent was to scare a child out of eating a large-size combo meal from their favorite fast food chain was the point in this ad, I’m not sure it’s going to work. In fact, with such a strong stigma placed on overweight children in this message I’m pretty sure it would cause almost anyone who finds comfort in food to turn just there after one glance of these billboards.

While other states have made vast improvements in the quality of food choices in vending machines and school cafeterias, I can’t figure out why the group sponsoring these billboards put so much time and money into such a negative message.
We all need to make a commitment to eat better, make time for physical activity and to simply treat ourselves better. Just as Lisette wrote about in her post “Just For Today,” each day we need to make a point to make at least one simple change to help improve our health—I think this is a much better message to share with youth today. Change starts with ONE thing, ONE person does. Let’s change where we go to dinner every Tuesday night; Let’s change what we do right after we get off from work. I believe that if we change at least one unhealthy habit ourselves and encourage today’s youth to join us, this simple act will have much more of an impact on obesity than these hurtful billboards.
An image of one of the billboards is below. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Just for Today

You’ve been struggling with your weight for as long as you can remember and it’s a new year. This is usually when you head to Target for cute work-out clothes, then to the closest gym to enthusiastically join (of course the initiation fee will be waived). Lastly, you very deliberately find yourself in the grocery store stocking up on all the healthy foods needed for your new diet. All the while, you are filled with a combination of personal resolve and familiar doubt.

Yes, it has to happen. There is no way you can start another year overweight and out of shape. You tell yourself this time, this year, will be different. I’m ready! Or are you? Enter…the familiar doubt. Memories of all your past good intentions slither through your mind as you look down at your body with much dissatisfaction and negative judgment. Why would this time be any different? What if I can’t?

But you can. If I can, you can. I promise! I rang in the New Year with a sense of satisfaction knowing that January 1, 2012 was just another day. True, it might be the beginning of a New Year, but it’s still just another day. And for me, I know I can do almost anything for one day.

That is the way I approach my weight management. I don’t summon up future visions of me running a half marathon or sitting on the beaches of the French Riviera in a string bikini. I decide that just for today I will eat three clean meals and that I will give up desserts. Just for today I will not eat off of other people’s plates or in my car. Just for today I will eat at the kitchen table and not in front of the television. Just for today I won’t help myself to seconds and I will serve myself on an appetizer-sized plate. Just for today I will get on the treadmill for forty minutes.  Just for today I will elevate the status of my food, eating it mindfully and with sincere gratitude.

I don’t worry about tomorrow or next month. All I need to do is right in front of me and when I do it for just one day, it leads me to tomorrow. If I concentrate on how much weight I have to lose or how truly out of shape I am, I feel overwhelmed. Even worse, I feel deprived and deprivation drives me back into the food.

One day at a time I take my health back. One day at a time, I live the healthy lifestyle that becomes a way of life. It’s not about forever because I am only guaranteed of today, and today I choose to respect the gift of this body.

H3 Recipe: Breakfast Potatoes

 



INGREDIENTS:

12 each Red bliss potatoes, washed

1 each Onion, chopped

1 each Green peppers, washed, chopped

2 teaspoon Olive oil

½ teaspoon Garlic powder

½ teaspoon Salt

¼ teaspoon Pepper

PREPARATION:

• Preheat oven to 400° F


• Cut potatoes into large chunks


• Chop vegetables.


• In medium size mixing bowl, add oil, potatoes, salt and pepper


• Toss potatoes until they are evenly coated with oil and spices.


• Place potatoes on baking sheet.


• Roast in oven for about 20 minutes.  Be sure to check on them every 10 minutes to flip them over/around.  This will aide in even browning.


• In medium sauté pan, sauté onions and peppers until tender.


• Then set aside, keeping warm.


• Once potatoes are finished in the oven, toss the potatoes with the cooked vegetable mixture, and serve.

Chef’s Note:  To make sweet potato fries, just cut sweet potatoes potatoes into thick long strips instead of chunks. These go great with any protein of choice and give great color and variety to your meals!

 

Serves: 4

Serving size: ½ cup

Calories: 100

Fat: 2

Coaching Corner - Resolution to Reality

At the stroke of midnight on December 31, over half of all Americans resolved to lose weight. While a few will succeed, statistics show that as many as 95 percent will be wearing the same pounds plus a few more this time next year. Why? Because they embark on a plan—usually a combination of diet and exercise—that is neither complete nor sustainable.

While good nutrition and regular exercise are obvious components, successful weight management is never just about the dinner table and the gym. It’s about the way we live—our actions and daily habits as they relate to work, play, stress, sleep, responsibilities, relationships and more.

Why diets fail and what to do instead
Many people are attracted to the promise of quick, easy weight loss through fad diets that restrict certain kinds of foods or prescribe specific food combinations. While you may lose weight initially on these diets, they’re not designed to be followed for a lifetime, nor are they healthy over the long term.

Most of us know what to eat. We’re not overweight because we lack information about healthy vs. unhealthy food. For a great majority of us, the problem lies in how much we eat and, more importantly, why. Everyone deals with food differently, and we overeat for different reasons. The first step toward change is to identify who or what leads you down that path.

Many people who struggle with their weight discover that overeating is a response to an emotion or feeling such as boredom, loneliness, sadness, frustration, exhaustion…or even joy and celebration. The good news is if you are using food to feed your feelings, that is simply behavior, and behavior can be changed.

How coaching can help
Achieving your weight-loss goal is a process that involves clarifying what you really want and why and then taking consistent actions to get there. Coaching provides the focus and structure to keep you on track. By exploring your motivators, strengths and available resources, your coach will help you find what works for you so that you can achieve your goals and live your healthiest and happiest life.

If you are one of those Americans who resolved to lose weight this year, why not make your resolution a reality? - Ditch the diet and discover a way of life!