AUGUST 20, 2009 ISSUE
Boone’s Biggest Loser League A Success
Additional Programs To Be Scheduled
Pictured from left to right are Bryan Belcher, manager of Healthy Carolinians for ARHS, Alice Salthouse, director of community outreach for ARHS, and Susan Bacot, a Biggest Loser instructor, behavior change specialist and wellness forum consultant. These three headed up the inaugural Boone’s Biggest Loser League, which helped participants lose weight and also realize that cholesterol levels, body fat and weight can be controlled without medicine. “We have control over a lot of these things without medication,” Bacot said. “So many times people are prescribed medication.” Boone’s Biggest Loser League, presented by Appalachian Regional Healthcare System (ARHS), recently wrapped up its inaugural 12-week program to promote weight loss and healthy lifestyles.
The program “is one thing that’s really seemed to transform people’s lives,” said Bryan Belcher, manager of Healthy Carolinians for ARHS.
A presentation Belcher gave on the final day of the program included charts of adult obesity percentages across America from 1985 to 2006.
“As time progressed, they had to come up with new categories and new colors,” said Susan Bacot, a Biggest Loser instructor, behavior change specialist and wellness forum consultant. “It’s a powerful impact when you see our country is becoming so obese.”
“We’re such a busy society,” Bacot continued. “We’ve moved away from eating whole foods in their natural state because people perceive that it takes too much time to fix whole foods. It does take more time and planning and thought; certainly, going to McDonald’s or Wendy’s is faster, but it can be done, even for busy moms and dads.”
The more convenient, processed and packaged foods, she added, come with a hefty pricetag down the road.
“The payoff of that is more sickness, more time away from work, more time away from school [and] more degenerative diseases,” Bacot said. “The time it takes to prepare whole foods is minimal compared to the time you spend in sick visits and hospitals [later].”
“In the typical American diet, we’ve gotten away from understanding what a treat is, that it’s something special to look forward to,” she continued. “[People] feel like they need a treat after every meal. They eat sugary cereal for breakfast, have a cookie after lunch and a piece of pie after dinner. We call it the ‘birthday party diet,’ where every time they eat, it’s pizza, chips, cake [and] soda.”
Bacot focused on introducing Biggest Loser participants to the importance of eating naturally occurring, “nutrient-rich foods that are calorie dilute,” she said. With no portion controls required for the foods available, the participants lost weight because their bodies’ needs were fulfilled.
“People overeat often because their nutrient needs are not being met,” Bacot said. “There is no nutritional value in processed and packaged food. ‘Enriched’ or ‘fortified’ foods are stripped of naturally occurring nutrients and added back in [are] chemical nutrients in a form our bodies can’t recognize, [such as] manmade vitamins.”
People eat more and more junk food, she said, and are hungry again soon after eating a meal “because the body is constantly craving something it’s not getting.”
The typical Biggest Loser meals for her team consisted of corn, beans, rice, potatoes, lots of green, leafy vegetables and all kinds of other vegetables, whole grains and fruits. Meat became more of a side dish rather than the main dish, and treats became occasional, she said.
Participants were “filling up and meeting all their nutrient needs,” Bacot said, adding that they also had more energy and started sleeping better.
The benefits were “much more than losing weight,” she said. Eating whole foods naturally builds up the body’s immune system, as does exercise, she added.
“Some of them had not been doing that before,” she said. “The combination of the two is really powerful.”
Earth Fare provided all the food for the program at no cost and gave participants ‘$5 off’ coupons and grocery bags.
“They were very supportive of what we were doing,” Bacot said.
She took participants grocery shopping and discussed vegetables such as bok choy and chard before doing cooking demonstrations utilizing the veggies.
“I think people have no idea and don’t realize what’s in packaged foods,” she said. “Lots of sugar, fat, salt and refined flours. We need to get back to whole grains, whole fruits and vegetables and minimize our intake of animal products.”
Bacot’s Team Vitality held its final meeting on Tuesday, August 11, and Team Downsize, led by Paul Moore—a registered dietitian and assistant director of the Paul Broyhill Wellness Center—wrapped up on Wednesday, August 12.
The teams did not compete against each other, but rather, each person concentrated on competing with himself or herself. Between the two classes, 250 pounds were lost, Belcher said.
Twenty-one people started out on Bacot’s team, and 16 completed the program.
“Two people ended up having medical issues, not related to the program,” she said. “One person moved away and several other people couldn’t stay the course I guess. Twelve weeks is a long time to commit in the summer and everyone’s readiness for change is at different levels.”
Team members on average lost 14 pounds apiece.
Moore’s team started out with 10 participants, and seven finished the program, losing an average of seven pounds each.
“His team had problems with diabetes, arthritis, they had had transplants, [and this] made it more difficult for them to lose weight,” said Alice Salthouse, director of community outreach for ARHS.
His team’s winner was Jody Petschauer. Team Vitality’s winner, Marty Button, was also the overall winner.
The individual winner from each team received a bike from Boone Bike valued at $600, and the overall winner was the recipient of a spa package at Westglow Resort and Spa valued at $200, Belcher said.
Button had enrolled in the program because she was upset with her cholesterol level of 274, Salthouse said. “She set out with that as the goal.”
After completing the program, Button’s cholesterol level had dropped 84 points, down to 190. The young woman with four children also changed her percentage of body fat by 14 percent, Salthouse said.
Button and her husband “will be sitting at the dinner table with the four kids, and [the kids] will see the active lifestyles and healthy foods of their parents,” she said. “We need to set an example for the next generation, for our children and grandchildren.”
North Carolina ranks fifth in childhood obesity in the nation.
“What they used to call adult onset diabetes, type 2, is now on the rise with children too,” Bacot said.
Salthouse thinks that setting positive examples for children has the potential to decrease the alarming levels of childhood obesity, diabetes and other related health issues. Additionally, a program for kids called BLAST starts Wednesday, September 9, at the Wellness Center. Scheduling is currently underway for future Boone’s Biggest Loser Leagues.
“We’d like to do it twice a year,” Salthouse said.
“Bryan and I are charged with bringing better health to the community,” Salthouse said.
“I was excited about pulling Susan into the group. I had been to some of her classes and she’s fantastic.”
“I thought it would be awesome to have a Biggest Loser League here and really impact people’s lives with not only a diet change, but a lifestyle change,” Bacot said.
Belcher had previously headed up a Biggest Loser League at a recreation center in Surry County, and it has been ongoing for three years to date. He thought a similar program in Boone would likewise thrive.
“We had the expertise and the facility [in Boone],” Belcher said. “We were pretty confident it would do well, and it did. We were excited about offering something so comprehensive to the community.”
The program included before and after pictures of participants, but also bloodwork, enabling participants to witness less perceptible changes, such as in cholesterol levels and percentages of body fat.
“We don’t focus on deprivation,” Salthouse said. “You can lose weight in an unhealthy way, and that was totally not our goal. [Our program is] a whole lot more positive than many programs.”
The program cost $125 for Wellness Center members and $200 for nonmembers. The fee for nonmembers not only covered the Biggest Loser League, but also gave participants access to all Wellness Center programs.
For more information about BLAST or Boone’s Biggest Loser League, call 828-266-1060, email wellnesscenter@apprhs.org or click to www.apprhs.org/wellness.
Beech Mountain’s Biggest Losers Drop Total of 231 Pounds
The inaugural class of Beech Mountain’s Biggest Loser program, held at the Buckeye Recreation Center, successfully graduated recently. Over the course of the 10 weeks, the group lost a combined 231 pounds and an average of six percent of their combined body weight.
The first class of “Losers,” now referred to as “Skinny Winners,” was comprised of 28 committed residents of the High Country.
Over the course of the program, participants were given a comprehensive Biggest Loser Manual containing educational material on healthy nutrition, resistance training, cardiovascular basics and worksite wellness. They were also given complementary pedometers, courtesy of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, and were educated on the 10,000 steps per day program.
After an introduction to their manuals, the Losers were given weight room orientations and complementary fitness assessments that measured beginning blood pressure, body fat, BMI, strength, flexibility, muscular endurance, aerobic capacity and girth measurements.
Throughout the program, participants met on a weekly basis for weigh-ins, attended required group fitness classes, seminars, group hikes, educational presentations, learned about proper nutrition at monthly Nutrition Nights at the Buckeye Recreation Center, participated in various group competitions and competed for various weekly prizes.
Many of the participants saw themselves transform into new people by leading a healthy and active lifestyle. Upon completion of the program, participants were given another comprehensive fitness assessment so they could witness the many physiological changes their bodies had undergone. Many of the folks experienced significant body fat loss, reduced blood pressure and resting heart rates and increased strength and flexibility. The top three “losers” are a prime example of this progress.
Beech Mountain’s Biggest Loser was Mary Jane Borden, who lost 20 pounds and 13.3 percent of her body weight. Second place went to Joyce Killinger, who lost 21 pounds and 11.7 percent of her body weight. The third Biggest Loser was Nancy Brunzos, who finished the program 13 pounds lighter and with 8.1 percent less body weight.
The top three winners were awarded grand prizes of $500, $250 and $100 from Doncaster - Tanner Outlet of Boone. Lowe’s Foods, Buckeye Recreation Center and the Town of Beech Mountain, the Health Connection of Banner Elk, Sorrento’s Bistro and private donors provided the weekly prizes during the program.
Many of the Biggest Losers were so inspired by their success in the program that they will continue to track weekly weigh-ins at the Buckeye Recreation Center and have set a goal to lose a combined 500 pounds by the holidays.
For more information on the Beech Mountain Biggest Loser Program, or other fitness and wellness programs held at the Buckeye Recreation Center, call Daniel Scagnelli at 828-387-3003 or email dscagnelli@townofbeechmountain.com.
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