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One of the most common reasons people fail to reach their exercise goals is they try to do too much too quickly. For example, when you start running, it’s not realistic to run five miles the first day. A more reasonable plan would be to start out walking and gradually add short intervals of running as you develop more stamina. If you start out running, you may end up getting injured or become so sore you won’t want to exercise again.
Hold yourself accountable |
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You know you want to begin a fitness program, but don’t know where to start. It’s easy! Walking is one of the easiest and most profitable forms of exercise. All you need is a good pair of shoes, comfortable clothing, and desire.
How to start: First of all, start out slow and easy. Just walk out the door. For most people this means head out the door, walk for 10 minutes, and walk back. That’s it? Yes, that’s it. Do this every day for a week. If this was easy for you, add five minutes to your walks next week (total walking time 25 minutes). Keep adding 5 minutes until you are walking as long as desired. Read more… |
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There are 79 million people in the United States who have pre-diabetes. If you are one of them or fear you might be, you should consider attending “Investing in a Future without Diabetes.”
Learn what you need to know and actions you can take to reduce your odds of developing diabetes from two Certified Diabetes Educators.
Sue Maxwell, RN, CDE, will discuss what pre-diabetes and diabetes are and the tests used to determine if you have one or the other. She will also talk about setting goals to improve your health, including developing a walking or exercise program to follow.
Phyllis Havens, MS, RD, LCSW, CDE, will discuss diet changes that can help. She will also be talking about stress management and weight loss as self-care strategies.
There will be multiple opportunities to interact, including small group sessions, a handout table and an interactive game.
“Investing in a Future without Diabetes” will be held Wednesday, May 16, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Waldo County General Hospital Education Center. This is a repeat of the workshop that was so well received last fall.
The presentation is free but pre-registration is requested by calling Barbara Crowley, Learning Resource Coordinator, 930-2650, or emailing her at bcrowley@wcgh.org.
Light refreshments along with coffee and tea will be served. |
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It’s frightening to be told you have health failure. But you can learn skills to better manage your condition while also connecting with others who have the same condition.
Waldo County General Hospital will hold another round of “The Beat Goes On,” beginning April 26 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. The course is a series of six free classes. Read more… |
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Almost every day, we hear news stories about how to stay fit and live a longer, healthier life. Many of the reports are contradictory and confusing. Want to know the facts?
Registrations are now being accepted for the March 29 to May 3 session ofSeniorCollegeat theHutchinsonCenteron Route 3 inBelfast. Among the new courses being offered Thursday afternoon from 1 to 3 is Good Health 101: The Seven Dimensions of Wellness. In the course, attendees will hear proven facts about taking care of oneself from a team of professional instructors, including physicians, therapists, and social workers.
These professionals will talk about the seven dimensions of wellness–medical, nutritional, emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and cognitive–highlighting what is practical and sensible each step of the way.
The five sessions to be held at theHutchinsonCenterwill focus on:
• medical wellness with Dr. Deb Peabody, family practice, Dr.Kent Clark, emergency medicine and Director of Medical Affairs, and Dr. David Crofoot, general surgeon, all of WCGH;
• nutritional wellness and diet with Dr. Dennis DeSilvey, cardiologist at WCGH, and John Bagnulo, MPH and Ph.D, naturalist and nutritionist;
• emotional wellness with Dr.Jodie Hermann, internal medicine and Director of Hospitalist Service at WCGH, and Judith Simpson, certified instructor in mindfulness based stress reduction;
• social and spiritual wellness with Kathleen DeSilvey, geriatric pastoral care specialist, Margie Spencer-Smith, licensed clinical social worker at WCGH, and Rev. Charles Erb, retired minister, and
• cognitive health and wellness with Dr. James Stevenson, neurologist, and Dr. Deb Peabody, family practice and Medical Director for Waldo County Home Health and Hospice, both of WCGH. Dr. Peabody will help fit all the wellness pieces together.
The fourth session of the course, a discussion of a safe, intelligent exercise program, will be held at theWaldoCountyYMCAand will be taught by Tamara Blades, the Y’s fitness director, and Dr. Owen Nelson, orthopedic surgeon at Waldo County General Hospital (WCGH).
To take this course, along with others being offered during the spring term, you must be a member ofSeniorCollegeand at least 50 years old. The annual membership to joinSeniorCollegeis $25. The fee for your first course per semester if $30 and $25 for each additional course.
To become a member and/or to register for a course by mail, send your check payable toSeniorCollege, along with a completed registration form to:SeniorCollege,UMaineHutchinsonCenter,80 Belmont Ave.,Belfast,ME04915. If you do not have a form, just include a note with your check indicating that it is for membership or registration or both, and give the name of the course you wish to take. Or stop by theHutchinsonCenteron Thursdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. to enroll at theSeniorCollegeoffice.
Registrations are accepted on a space-available basis through the first day of classes on March 29. However, some of the courses fill up quickly, so it’s best to get your registration in as soon as possible.
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Have you been diagnosed with heart failure? Want to learn some skills to help you better manage your condition and connect with others who also have heart failure?
A series of educational classes, known as “The Beat Goes On!,” will be offered on Thursdays between Sept. 29 and Oct. 27 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. The series will cover the following topics:
Participants are welcome to bring a family member or friend with them to the classes.
The classes will be held in the second floor conference room of the new building at125 Northport Ave.across from the hospital. There is an elevator available.
Call Barbara Crowley at 930-2650 or email her at bcrowley@wcgh.org for more information or to register. |
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The merits of vitamin D, besides improving bone health, are becoming more evident. Consider:
• There is mounting evidence that links low levels of vitamin D to an increased risk of type 1 diabetes, muscle and bone pain, and, perhaps more serious, cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, ovaries, esophagus, and lymphatic system.
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Waldo County General Hospital recently finished its 26-week weight-loss challenge, “Waldo Weighs-In.” The winner, Roz Grotton, lost almost 30 percent of her original body weight. In the process, she was able to stop taking the medication she had been on for 14 years to lower her triglycerides.
The group as a whole, 103 people started the competition, lost an amazing 1,113.73 pounds, even with some participants dropping out.
But the most interesting story of the competition may be the effect it had on family members of some of those involved in the competition.
Hospital employees Sione Taungatua and Mert Sprague together lost 165 pounds and finished second in the competition, losing more than 27% of their combined weight.  Sione and Mavis Taungatua And while Taungatua is thrilled with his monetary prize, he is also pleased that his friend was able to lose so much weight and that his daughter, Mavis, who will be an eighth grader next year, is approaching her own weight loss of nearly 50 pounds.
Mavis started running last year with her grandmother and then adopted a diet of no breads or pasta (except on her free day of Sunday) to support her father. Mavis and Sione have been mostly eating chicken, tuna fish, fruits and veggies for the past 26 weeks.
Mavis’s first race was to raise money for Camp Kiev and she finished fourth in her age-group. She was tired afterwards but also felt she had accomplished something. Soon after, she started running when she was angry or stressed and realized it made her feel better.
Sione got involved when Mavis asked him to do a 5K with her for her birthday. He really didn’t want to do it but it was his daughter’s birthday request so he did. After-wards, he says, “I felt good about doing it and being able to finish,” and he adds, “We weren’t last.” It was March and their time was 46 minutes.
Sione and Mavis are now running 5Ks almost every weekend and his time is down to 28 minutes and hers is 35. The two now run two or three times a week. Sione’s goal is to do a 5K in less than 25 minutes by the end of summer.
Sione also quit smoking about four months into the competition. Part of his incentive was to beat his mother-in-law in a race.
Sione is now down to 219 pounds and his goal is to get to 200 pounds and then to maintain his weight between 200 and 210 pounds. Mavis continues to lose weight and believes it has helped her in the school sports she is actively involved with.
So how did Sione lose 100 pounds during the 26 weeks? At first, his rule was no breads or pasta but as time went by, he started limiting himself to chicken, tuna fish, fruits and veggies. If his family was having barbecued chicken, he would wash the barbecue sauce off his. Taco salads were made with ground turkey; his without the taco seasonings because of the sodium content. When his family was having nachos and strawberry shortcake at a birthday celebration, he would talk about how good his salad was.
Among his favorites were Southwest-style corn, “which tastes like you’re cheating”; canned tuna or chicken in his salads; and egg beaters with onion, mushroom or peppers.
Sione says his weight loss was helped tremendously by the fact that he’s not a couch potato and likes to get out and do things. He enjoys going for walks with Mavis and his two younger children, ages 4 and 6, on nature trails, swimming, or even playing soccer. And it’s important to him to be a role model for his children, who he wants to be healthy and active, instead of playing with wireless electronic devices inside.
In the case of another Waldo County General Hospital employee, Lynne Depasquale, it was her 16-year-old daughter, Courtney, who was pushing her mother to do more exercising. “When she wanted to stop, I’d tell her she needed to push a little farther. And when she’d get to her breaking point, I’d tell her to do a little more. I’d say, ‘Five more and then five more after that and tell her she could do it. She needed someone to push her.”  Courtney and Lynne Depasqualte are thrilled to see the number on the scale at Lynne's final weigh-in for Waldo Weighs-In 1. Apparently it worked. Lynne and her partner finished fourth in the competition. Lynne lost 43 pounds after the competition started and has lost 54 since she started on her weight-loss journey at the first of the year.
Courtney, her coach, who Lynne says pushes harder than Jillian on the Biggest Loser Show, has lost 10 pounds herself.
Lynne has been hula-hooping, walking and running. She and Courtney have a 2-mile walk that they do together from their home. They also both took part in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, known locally as “Bon Bon Bra-gade,” as members of Team Waldo.
Lynne says she will be joining Waldo Weighs-In Second Chances, which begins July 21, to keep going on her weight-loss journey, with a goal of losing 100 pounds. And now that a non-hospital employee can be a partner, she and Courtney will be partners during the 20-week competition.
“I’ve been thinking about losing weight for years and years and every January I say to myself that I’m going to do it. This year, I said, ‘This is the year.’ I didn’t want to get to June and have to say that I wasted the six months. It’s been nice to have Courtney to talk to about it and I think it helped us both. I have more self-confidence now and can do more.” |
 Kimberly Lenfestey Getting a diagnosis of breast cancer is frightening enough. Add to that all the options for treatment there are now and the situation can become overwhelming for many people. Should I have surgery? If so, should it be breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) or a mastectomy? Should I have radiation? Chemotherapy? Or should I try a hormonal therapy? And what about all the alternative and complementary therapies, will they help my recovery?
At Waldo County General Hospital, anyone with a diagnosis of breast cancer and their family members can get help navigating through the maze of healthcare options.
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Barbara Crowley, RN, has been hired to head up Waldo County General Hospital’s virtual Learning Resource Center. In that role, she has already set up four community presentations for the next several weeks. - |
