BUT, I just couldn't! That night I racked my brain, I couldn't sleep. I just knew that I wanted our family to be a part of this challenge. We owed this family change to Big 'D' to help him. We owed a new sense of health to our children's future. I owed it to myself. An entire plan came to me during those hours of no sleep. Idea after idea kept circling. That next morning I had it all figured out....well, all except for our community event. That afternoon while running on the treadmill I still couldn't stop thinking of a plan. I knew I had to think of it fast, as the deadline to sign-up was that weekend. Ideas like putting together a mommy walking club, or some kind of event at my church with basketball or volleyball, or maybe just a health screening party with my extended family kept filtering through my brain. But I didn't want it to be THAT easy. I wanted to do something that would actually have some kind of positive impact on others. And then....ding ding ding! My job! My work! I work for Family Health Services!!! That's exactly what this challenge is about....Family Health right?? And then more ideas started to flow...."I could have my work sponsor my event; we could do a community 5k; we could do a health fair; we could do a hike; or, we could do an employee health challenge" I knew our family could do this! So I signed us up and the rest is history!
I've been giving details of our community event throughout the last six months, so I'll just briefly re-cap what we ended up doing and then get to our finale event and all the fun pictures and results! What our family finally created, with the approval the board of directors at my work, was the Family Health Services first annual Employee Health Challenge! I knew that this was going to be a HUGE undertaking, as our community center employs over 200+ employees. But, I also knew that even though we are a health care facility, there were MANY employees who needed a boost in their health and who could use this competition. I also knew that I would be doing a lot of the work of this event by myself as Big 'D' was consumed with his nursing program, but I was ok with this and ready to take it on!
I modeled our employee challenge after a twelve week challenge I was a part of with Gold's gym over three and a half years ago, and also after the Magic Valley Family challenge that we are currently a part of. I took ideas that I liked about both competitions. Like Gold's gym, I knew it needed to be twelve weeks, but unlike them, I liked having winning results being based off percentage of weight lost. It seems to be the most fair. What I LOVE about the Magic Valley competition are the activities set up for its participants to help motivate and encourage, so I knew I needed to incorporate those. I also knew that I wanted to incorporate something a little different to help employees who didn't need to lose weight, but wanted to become more healthy. So, I created a "Healthy Points" list where everyone could earn points for different healthy habits. We started with 65 excited participants. Getting everything put together was more than overwhelming, but it was also invigorating!
I didn't really hold any "must-do" requirements, (other than a designated person taking their weights), but I did emphasize a few things at a "kick-off" meeting I held at the beginning of our twelve weeks, which included...... 1. Lose weight the healthy way....this is real life, you don't want to gain all or any weight after these twelve weeks, let's do this the right way. Find what works for YOUR situation. Everyone has a different situation. Many of my employees work ten hour days which pretty much makes it nearly impossible to exercise longer than an hour or two, if that. (consistently) A ten hour work day makes it hard to eat healthy as well, so I emphasized finding ways to make a healthier diet work with their situations, such as crock pot meals etc... 2. Find real life motivations...don't just lose weight to look good, lose weight so you can play with your kids, or to be able to climb the stairs without fainting (lol). Looking good is NOT a good enough motivation, it fades. Feeling good lasts longer. You don't always look good after a hard workout, but you always feel great! Focus on how you feel, not on how you look. 3. End goal......you must work for an end goal that can mark your progress, a landmark goal that gives you the intangible feeling of success. Something such as before and after pictures, or before and after push-ups or sit-ups, or how about being able to climb up a massive rock wall?? Tangible goals like winning a vacation or an I-Pad are great catalysts, but focus on your real life landmarks to help you reach your goals.
Darrin and I held motivational meetings, informational discussions in person and through emails and literally personally trained about five of my employee challengers at the gym. I know that I am definitely not a professional by any means, nor would I ever consider myself one, but I do have their same initiatives and objectives! I had an absolute blast doing this with the employees that signed up! Now that's an intangible feeling!!! And as a bonus, what a motivator it was for me to keep me on the track of weight loss! During this employee challenge, I lost 15 pounds, and I know it's because I had to be a good example!
For prize packages we did a lot of personal marketing! We went store to store and meeting to meeting. We received donations from Family Health Services, Gold's Gym, the YMCA, Uniform Advantage, Complete Nutrition, Scrubs etc, Pampered Chef, Real Deals on Home Decor, Jeremy Morris Farms, family monetary donations, and anonymous donations as well. We ended up giving two mini I-Pads, gym memberships, and many gift certificates. All prizes totaled more than a thousand dollars! For a small scale competition and as a first time health challenge director, I considered this a HUGE success. Now I have my sights set on even bigger details for next year! How great is this?? Our project help initiate an annual employee health challenge! Wow, I'm so pumped! I'm going to start working on it near the end of summer!
So lets get to it right!? For our collaborative
employee end goal or "finale event", we put together, with CSI, a ropes challenge course. In the background of this pic are all the activities, but it's that big rock climbing wall that is the beast!
I asked the employees at the beginning of the challenge to work their bodies hard so by the end of week twelve we could all scale this huge rock climbing wall. I wish I had more photos of other employees, but I'm still waiting for more to come from them to my email...so more photos to come!
I chose a rock climbing wall because not only is it a just a great physical goal, but like a twelve week competition, it is a great mental goal as well. With this kind of a wall, you have a lot to accomplish....any fear of heights, fears of falling, physical strength and physical endurance. The rock wall would be our progress marker. This was hard!!! I actually was going to give up on around the third level, thinking I couldn't finish. But I knew I HAD to. Who knew so many thoughts go through your mind as your climbing a huge rock wall.....thoughts like.... I'm the first climber I have to get to the top. Hey, this isn't that bad, it's pretty easy. Oh shoot, it's not easy any more. What do I grab onto next. Oh crap, I'm going to fall, I can't hold on. I quit. I'm the leader, I can't quit, what will it look like if I quit. This is what I worked so hard for you can't stop. Only one more level. Everyone is watching me. You'll be mad at yourself if you don't finish. I can't do it. It's too hard. I'm going to fall. My arms are going to fall off. My fingers are numb, I can't hold on anymore. Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into. My feet have no where to go, where do I go. Oh heaven help me. Ahhhhh! Nope, you got this, hold on, climb, you can do this. Oh my gosh, I did it, I just slapped the top. Get me off of this thing. Oh yeah baby, I did it. Phewsh, I'm on the ground. My arms are going to fall off. Look back at the wall up in the air...oh ya, I just did that, how did I just do that. YES, I did it!!!
Doing this with Darrin and my daughter Tommye-Lynn was probably the highlight of this event for me. Reaching new goals together has been so rewarding and uplifting.
I wish I had more videos of other participants!!! But my parents only caught me on tape.....I wasn't aware of this or else I may have have objected to it. However, I'm so glad they caught it, cause it shows how much fun it was, but also that it was hard work! The first was was taken just before I fell, but quickly grabbed my way back!!
I made it to the top!!
And my arms were dead!
We also had six kids who came with their parents to participate! Many others kids and family members came as spectators. These kids amazed me! Especially my sweet Tommye-Lynn because when we tried a small rock wall about ten weeks ago and she was very afraid. But she scaled this wall like spider man! And my niece Alex was amazing! So proud of her because she spent maybe ten to fifteen minutes stuck in one spot, but never gave up and made it to the top!
The other kids made it up no problem. Oh to be a kid again with that energy, zest, and low weight to carry up a rock wall!
We also worked our way as a groups through a big spider web and jumped a few totem poles and swings.
At the end of our ropes challenge we celebrated with a small luncheon. We had a small food budget and I wanted to do something somewhat on the more healthy side, so we had a baked potato bar with angel strawberry short cake as dessert.
Tommye-Lynn and I washed and foil wrapped forty potatoes the night before and then had to cook them in a couple different ovens because they were so huge! A big thank you to my friend Lillian for helping me out with that! My mom helped me cut the four cartons of strawberries the night before as well.
Before we dug in, we announced the winners of our weight loss competition,with grand thru fourth place prizes and two sportsmanship awards.
This awesome girl right here is the grand prize winner of our twelve week employee challenge!! She lost 19 pounds which totaled ten percent of her total body weight. She is a breast cancer survivor and has made it through some pretty tough life challenges. To say I'm proud of her is an understatement. She worked her bootie off more than anybody I know. She works a ten hour work day at our dental office, goes home and does work as a Realtor, and is a full-time mom as well. Even with all of this, she still lost 19 pounds, wow! She deserves the world, and I wish I could hand it to her. I was honored to hand over a mini I-Pad, a $60 medical uniform gift certificate, and YMCA summer memberbship to her as our employee challenge winner. This girl right here, was reason enough to do this community event. She alone, made it all worth while. Sure do love you Tally Thornquest!
I wish I had pictures taken of all the other winners, but that totally slipped my busy mind!! One of my other employee participants inspired the "healthy points" aspect of this competition. Lillian Avila is a sweet, cute, adorable, tiny little thing, but she was interested in eating more healthy and becoming more active. She knows that the older she gets the harder it gets for women to stay small. She also knows that it's just as important to keep a skinny girls heart healthy as it is for any others heart! Way to go Lillian, thank you for doing amazing! I got to watch her change things like, reduce carbs, eat more greens, and add a spinning regimen with some strength training at the YMCA. What huge heart for such a little lady! She won the "best sportsmanship" award with a $25 medical uniform gift certificate and a pampered chef food chopper! I wish I could have given her more!All in all, this was a HUGE success!!! Boy were we all soooooooo tired! A few of us, including myself actually did fall off the wall, but we were able to endure, and we made it to the top. To those who weren't able to make it to the top, they now have a new goal and know what to expect! Even my family member who just came to watch and support, want to make this a new goal. So we are reserving this ropes course again for the end of summer and my family is going to do it! Also, as a result of our employee challenge, Family Health Services instated a new corporate plan and now has a contract with the YMCA that provides a discount for all employees who join! This is awesome!!
To Big 'D', who had to watch me endure a lot of ups and downs, I say.... I LOVE YOU!!! He helped with anything and everything that he possibly could while going to full-time school and working over-nights. On the day and night before the actual finale event, he ran probably three hours of errands for me as I had to be in other places organizing other activities. I could not have done this without him, hence the name "Family Challenge" is perfect. We are learning just how important it is to have the whole family on board.
This community event that turned into health challenge within a health challenge has been so time consuming, so overwhelming, and so stressful.....but we'd do it ALL over again, because it has also been so amazing, so fun to witness change and so unbelievably rewarding! We have received many emails messages thanking us for our time and effort to this project. Messages telling us that we have helped change their attitudes on health and that we have changed their lives! One participant told me that she gave up on her health until she entered this employee challenge. She lost 13 pounds and broke through a plateau that she'd been on for a couple years. Another email from a sweet lady who works in our office in Boise, emailed me that she now works out with her husband because we helped motivate her! Another gal told me that I've been her best cheer leader and told me that she can't believe I was never one in high school. Hahaha! These messages and comments have made my heart sing!
Now, just an update on big 'D'.....since his last official weigh in, Darrin has lost another 10 pounds! This is wonderful! He is looking and feeling so much better! That is over 52 pounds that he has lost! He has his last official weight taken on June 20th. He wants to lose 20 pounds in this last three weeks!? It's been pretty slow going the last six months, so we'll see. And I promise that I don't mean that in a bad way. Ultimately it's been a good thing that it's been slow going. It's how Darrin will keep the weight off, it's how he will be able to continue on this journey. This won't be our stopping point. I feel like we are only touching the surface of health here! We've learned that rapid weight loss is not our specialty, and we've learned to be happy with that. In the beginning it really was more about the grand prize money. But we quickly learned, that wasn't the motivating factor. Health is the motivating factor, and that's real life. Climbing a wall and enduring to the end is real life.
Here's to the last three weeks till real life!
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