Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

Before I launch into my list, I want to note that this is not an all-inclusive list, nor is it ranked in order of importance. It’s just four pieces of the 1,000-piece puzzle that so many health practitioners, employers, employees, and others are trying to solve.

1. People don't realize how much of a problem their weight is.

Perception is reality, and adults’ perceptions about their weight are way out of whack. According to an August 2010 Harris Interactive/Health Day poll that included feedback from almost 2,500 adults ages 18 and older:

• 30 percent of overweight people think they’re actually normal size.
• 70 percent of obese people feel they are merely overweight.
• 39 percent of morbidly obese people think they are overweight but not obese.

2. Many workplaces have a bad health culture.

Healthy corporate environment and policies are often overshadowed by an unhealthy workplace culture that supports donuts at meetings and candy bars for fund-raisers.

3. Office wellness initiatives lack educated leadership.

Knowledge is power. Unfortunately, most corporate health promotion initiatives are overseen by individuals lacking the appropriate educational background to safely and effectively sustain those efforts.

4. Politics and uncertainty hamper corporate wellness programs.

Legal landmines tied to worksite health promotion scare away serious wellness efforts that might have a healthy impact on the workforce. Add to that the great unknown that is Health Reform and employers start to feel like their health promotion hands are tied.

We always hear that fiber is an important part of our diet. You probably know that it helps to keep bowel movements regular. But are there other reasons you should pay attention to your daily fiber intake?

I read in my worksite wellness newsletter that fiber can also lower cholesterol and help control blood sugar levels. But, most importantly, I read that it can aid in weight loss! This caught my eye and made me want to find out more information.

How Does Fiber Help with Weight Loss?

Fiber helps you to feel full for a longer period of time, which will help you to eat less. To lose weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn. Because the body does not break down fiber, it can grab some dietary fat and carry it out of the body.

Which Foods Contain Fiber?

Some good sources of fiber include

• Whole-grain products
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Beans
• Peas
• Nuts
• Seeds

Several brands now have fiber bars on the market. Kellogg’s has some high-fiber cereals and snacks. You can also add a fiber supplement called Benefiber to many hot or cold beverages.

Make sure you gradually add fiber to your diet. Contact an onsite fitness center staff member to get a nutrition consultation and exercise prescription. Choose your diet carefully and don’t forget your fiber!

Why do women have a more difficult time losing weight than men? We all know that women are different from men in several ways, but it just doesn’t seem fair. It’s complicated, but it has to do with women’s physiology, brain chemistry, hormones, and other issues.

In corporate fitness management, I work with all types of people. I have to admit, the men I design programs for end up having more success stories than the women. Here are some reasons behind the difference:

• Women have 20 percent more fat and larger fat cells to help support the possibility of pregnancy. It’s not that pregnancy makes you fat, because I have seen some in-shape women around the corporate fitness center who have had children. But it can make it harder to lose weight.
• Most women tend to shy away from strength training. Strength training helps increase the amount of lean body mass you have, which in turn speeds up your metabolism. This helps you burn more calories overall.
• Women stress more than men, which causes them to not sleep as well. Sleep and nutrition go hand in hand; if you don’t sleep well, you tend to eat worse throughout the day. You will also feel more stressed because you didn’t sleep well. It's a vicious cycle that we need to stop! Most corporate wellness centers offer a stress resilience program that you should look into.

So, grab a coworker, neighbor, friend, or your spouse and start working a little harder on your physical fitness. Just because we are women doesn’t mean we can’t be healthy and in great shape!

NBC’s reality TV show The Biggest Loser has taken America by storm since 2004. The show is now in its tenth season and still largely popular due to its relatable concepts and life-changing power. Why not take the themes of The Biggest Loser and transform them into your own employee health incentive? Here are some ways to safely launch your worksite weight-loss program:

1. First things first: To avoid legal trouble, rename your program so that it doesn’t bear the trademark The Biggest Loser name, but is still recognizable, for example, "Lose to Win."
2. Don’t vote anyone off. Yes, there should be an overall winner to make it a true competition, but participants should be given the opportunity to continue through the entirety of the program, reinforcing lifelong habits.
3. Avoid singling out individuals in a negative way. If a participant has a bad week of weight loss, discuss what factors may have been inhibiting them and move on with an action plan toward the next weigh-in.
4. Do push your participants out of their comfort zone into more strenuous workouts, keeping in mind their physical limits. Watching the show can give you many new ideas of exercises, but not all of them can be appropriate for your clientele. Remember, the show has trained medics on standby at all times.
5. Do record all baseline health measurements at the beginning of the program and periodically throughout. On the show, Dr. Huizenga performs extensive assessments on the players, telling them their body’s age, showing scans of their fat distribution, and so on. At the very minimum, record weight, percent body fat, girth measurements, BMI, resting heart rate, and blood pressure.
6. Do encourage participants to understand the root of their weight gain and possible underlying issues that have made them unsuccessful at past weight-loss attempts. Jillian Michaels, trainer on The Biggest Loser, takes this to a bit of an extreme, making it her personal goal to emotionally break down each player to his or her point of realization and future empowerment. Get to know your clients' lifestyles and remind them that weight loss is such a multifaceted process that emotional and relational issues play a role.
7. Lastly, be realistic. Remind participants (and yourself) that you most likely aren’t going to see more than 10 pounds of weight loss in one week. Your corporate participants also have a job, a family, and other obligations that The Biggest Loser's players are removed from during their time at the ranch.

If there’s one theme from the show worth stressing to your clients, it’s a line in the theme song: “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

Fat freezing, a new cosmetic procedure also known by its technical name, cryolipolysis, may be considered the newest alternative to liposuction. The method involves a special device that applies very cold temperatures to pockets of excess fat. The cold temperature causes the targeted fat to die, which is then eliminated by the body over a course of months.

Is this new procedure the answer to our nation’s ever-increasing weight problem and associated health care costs? Not at all. This procedure is only for small amounts of fat or “problem areas.” Cryolipolysis will do little if anything reduce overall weight, and it certainly won’t decrease health risks associated with excess body fat. In fact, without a proper diet and exercise plan, the fat previously frozen and removed can come back elsewhere.

Although this new procedure sounds like a simpler and safer substitute for liposuction, the healthiest and time-proven way to decrease weight and improve health is a balanced diet and regular exercise. Encourage your employees to commit to a healthy lifestyle by adding an onsite fitness center to your organization’s building. Ensure that the wellness center is staffed with qualified health and wellness professionals who are skilled in exercise program design and nutrition coaching. Promote the idea of improved health with behavior change rather than quick fixes.

A few weeks ago, one of my worksite fitness center members felt the need to defend his absence from the worksite fitness center by showing me that he was at least making healthy dietary choices. He showed me his lunch beverage, a 20-ounce Gatorade. He was disappointed when I didn't affirm his drink choice.

Sports Drinks Are Not a Healthy Alternative

Ads for sports drinks, vitamin-infused waters, and even vitamin-infused sodas want consumers to believe these beverages are a healthy alternative to other sweetened beverages. The fact is, they often contain just as many, if not more, calories and sugar as regular sodas and sweetened drinks and have no real health benefits.  

One study found that Americans get 22 percent of their daily calories from their drink choices. These calories are almost entirely from sugar. Excess sugar in the diet is a major contributor to obesity, insulin sensitivity, and tooth decay, and can also contribute to decreases in immune function, depression, and many other health concerns.

Educate Employees and Provide Healthy Choices

You can help create a healthier workforce by minimizing sugary drinks available at your office as well as educating your employees about the health risks associated with excess sugar consumption. Employing registered dieticians and personal trainers at your corporate fitness center is a great step toward guiding your employees to adopt a healthy diet and exercise program.

What steps are you taking to cut down employee access to sugar-sweetened beverages at work?

You’re an avid exerciser, hitting the gym five days a week. You think, “I’m doing great with my active lifestyle.” Well, think again! According to recent research highlighted in an article by Men’s Health, it may not be that simple. “The more hours a day you sit, the greater your likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise or how lean you are,” says the article.

For example, a “standing” worker (salesclerk) burns about 1,500 calories at work, whereas a person with a desk job might expend only 1,000 calories. Although 500 calories may not seem like that much of a difference, extending that over weeks or years may go a long way in explaining why people gain 16 pounds within 8 months after beginning sedentary office work. Check out the study behind the startling numbers.

Even worse, it’s not just weight gain we’re talking about. Sedentary lifestyles can also impact heart health; lead to muscle stiffness; contribute to poor balance and mobility; and result in lower back, neck, and hip pain.

Corporate wellness programs can help reverse these effects. Implementing regular stretch breaks, office walking programs, trained and certified staff to educate employees, and small-step incentive programs will help encourage employees to move their sitting-versus-standing spectrum in the right direction and improve the company bottom line.

What are you doing to get your employees out of their seats?

This much-debated topic has gone round and round in the medical and fitness community. Is it possible to be overweight and still be healthy?

On one side of the coin, researchers speculate that if an overweight or obese person has normal blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose levels, there is no reason to push weight loss. On the other side, a study published by Circulation online in 2009 concluded that overweight (body mass of greater than 25) individuals with no abnormalities of blood pressure, cholesterol, or glucose have a 50 percent increased risk of developing heart disease compared to those of normal weight (body mass of less than 25). Beyond being bad for your heart, increased weight increases the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Regardless of what side of the debate you fall on, one thing is unanimous: Fitness is key and pounds matter less than type of body fat. That is where a worksite wellness program and corporate fitness staff can come into play to help you identify and reduce your dangerous fat.

Recently there has been a push to look beyond the standard BMI (body mass index) measurement and into true body composition testing. Skinfold testing, BOD POD, and underwater weighing are just a few of the tests available to determine the true percentage of body fat.

BMI does serve a purpose, but it also has its shortcomings. For example, check out the Shapely Prose blog by Kate Harding. She runs a “BMI Project,” a series of photos of individuals of different sizes with their BMI levels. It’s a glaring example of how skewed the BMI measurement can be at times. 

The fact is that being overweight or obese is not necessarily good for you, but more importantly being overfat is the largest concern. So eat a balanced diet, get plenty of exercise, and take care of yourself. Regardless of the debate, you have only one body, so take care of it!

If you’re skeptical like me, you may have questioned some of the weight-loss methods you’ve seen in the media. After all, any diet that requires you to substitute steak for fruit salad is sure to be a hit, but how healthy can that really be?

Amidst all the confusion a simple question remains: When looking to lose weight, what matters more? What you eat, or how much you eat? Here are some thoughts to share with overweight employees looking to make a change.

Tell Employees to Burn More Calories Than They Consume

Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Griffin Prevention Research Center, seems to offer a simple answer. Dr. Katz points out that “The fundamental truth is that energy balance, calories in versus calories used, determines weight.” Put even more simply, the only way to lose weight is to burn off more calories than you consume. There’s really no mystery about calorie balance.

But it’s not quite that easy. How do you know if you should cut out carbs, pump up the protein, or follow any one of the many other suggestions out there along with eating less?

Nutritionist Mark Haub, an associate professor of nutrition at Kansas State University, answered these very questions with a unique experiment. For one month he ate a high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient diet consisting of Twinkies, Nutter Butters, canned or frozen vegetables, a protein supplement, steak, and milk averaging 1,800 calories per day. Believe it or not, he lost weight--15 pounds in the one-month experiment.

Tell Employees to Eat Less but Also Eat Healthy

So how much you eat has more bearing than what you eat--unless you actually want to lose weight in a healthy way.

The major problem with any diet is that you go on it, but eventually must come off of it. So unless you plan to maintain a diet the rest of your life, the odds are you will regain the weight you lost once you resume your normal eating habits.

The long and the short of it? Eat just enough of foods that are good for you and get on with the rest of your day!

As employee waistlines expand, so do their pets. The good news is that man’s best friend can be just the motivation and camaraderie your employees need to jump-start a fitness routine that can benefit both.

According to a 2004 study by the Wellness Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, dogs and their owners lose weight and stay trim by dieting and exercising together. A few key preparation steps will have your employees walking and jogging with their four-legged friend in no time:

Help Your Employees Prepare for Fitness by Preparing Their "Paws"

Encourage employees to visit a running/walking specialty footwear store for proper shoes and socks. Everyone has a different gait, so it is important to purchase the right shoes. A pooch's paws are just as important. Some surfaces such as gravel, rock, and even concrete can be hard on a dog's paws. Check your dog's footpads when you return from your workout and adjust your runs accordingly.

Get Employees and Pets to Gear Up Appropriately for Outdoor Exercise

Instruct employes to wear running-specific clothing that wicks moisture away from the body and fits comfortably. For their furry pal, use a body harness and run-specific leash. This will help the dog’s comfort level during the workout and help him associate the leash and harness with serious running, not stopping to smell the roses. Both dogs and their owners should have water readily available, as well as reflective clothing or a blinking dog tag.

Share the Benefits of Starting Slow and Establishing a Routine

Employees should start off slow and warm up prior to their workout. This will prepare them and their dog's muscles for the upcoming workout and reduce the risk of injury. When walking or jogging, they should start with a slow and steady pace. If either one shows any changes in gait, slow down or end the workout. It may mean they're going too fast or too far for their current fitness level. Employees should also keep the age and breed of their dog in mind when determining the pace and distance for their run. They should always keep their dog at their side to avoid dangerous falls.

Dogs thrive on routine and so do humans. So use the opportunity to encourage employee health by teaching the importance of building a routine. Employess should keep their workouts three to five days per week. Not only will this give them a slimmer waistline and improve your corporations financial waistline, too, but they’ll gain some bonding-time with their pet.