The POWER Up! 2010 Challenge began as a vision, a desire to promote lifestyle change in our community. With help from a Medical Education & Research (MERC) grant secured by the Center for Weight Management at St. Joseph’s Area Health Services, this vision has come to life.

In late January, over 100 people from the Nevis community came forward to accept the challenge of living a healthy lifestyle by focusing on the POWER tools: Protein and Produce, Optimism, Water, Exercise and Resisting grazing. As I take time to review the tracking sheets each week, I am ecstatic about the changes participants are making. Here is just a sampling of what has me smiling on Monday mornings.

Bill Schuldt began this challenge after hearing his doctor say he needed to lose weight. Bill’s plan was ambitious: to work up to 65 minutes of exercise by the end of the eight-week challenge and stop grazing all together.

His first walk on the treadmill lasted 23 minutes, but by week three, he had met his goal of progressing to 65 minutes. Bill also has made changes in his eating habits by saying good-bye to cookies, chips and soda which made up his after-work grazing ritual. By week five of the wellness challenge, Bill has lost 16 pounds.

Mattie Hjelseth was encouraged by her Junior Varsity basketball coach, registered dietitian Leah Walters, to actually gain weight. This task seems simple for most, but Mattie is a talented athlete whose growing height has made it difficult for her muscle mass to keep up. Walters worked with Mattie to create a plan to increase her daily protein intake. When combined with exercise, increased protein helps to build muscle mass.

Mattie’s individual plan has been successful. Since the challenge began she has successfully gained more than 8 pounds of fat-free mass.

Lisa Toft sent me an email after the first week of the challenge to update me on her progress toward her goal of increasing water intake. Lisa was drinking 8 ounces of water per day before she joined the POWER Up! Challenge and openly admitted, “I hate water.”

After just one week in the challenge she increased her daily intake to 32 ounces, a 300 percent increase! Lisa used strategies such as flavoring water with a splash of fruit juice and carrying water from home with her to increase the ease of drinking water during her workday.

“It really has made a difference in how I feel, especially at the end of the day” says Toft.

Seventy year-old Eddie Rousseau is less than six weeks away from competing in the Mad City 100K (62 mile) National Masters Championship in Madison, WI with the goal of a setting a record in his age division.

When Eddie stepped onto my TANITA scale to assess his body composition, the only thing more amazing than this ultra-marathoner’s feet was his body fat percentage which measured 5.4 percent. That’s the lowest I have ever personally taken.

A “normal” range of body fat percentage for men is 18-24 percent. A number between 14 to 17 percent is pretty common. Professional athletes, on average, have a body fat percentages between 6-12 percent.

I tried to feed Eddie a cookie but he wouldn’t take it. Distance runners commonly taper down to 5.0-5.5 percent body fat during peak training for optimum performance. With that said, it looks like Eddie is primed to break the 22-year-old USA Track and Field national track record.

Not all participants have experienced what they might consider amazing results, however, even small changes and a turn to living healthier lifestyles deserve to be celebrated. Winston Churchill said: “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

That is what we will continue to do at St. Joseph’s Center for Weight Management. We hope all POWER Up! 2010 Challenge participants take the time to look at and celebrate their individual results as well.