BIG LOSERS are BIG WINNERS
Lifestyle changes lead to self-esteem, team building, insurance savings
By Joan Tupponce

When she heard about the Biggest Loser competition at Sentara Careplex in Hampton in January 2007, clinical nurse specialist Cathy Smith decided to take the challenge. At the time, Smith weighed 167 pounds. She was eager to change her lifestyle and waistline.

The competition was the brainchild of Tonja Thigpen, RN and manager assist for the critical care unit. The fi rst year she included only 20 contestants from the critical care area. This year, the competition went hospital-wide. "At fi rst it was to help build our team," Thigpen explains. "Everybody was talking about changing their lifestyle but they weren't doing anything about it so I started the competition."

The goal was for everyone to lose weight and build self-esteem. There were only two teams that year but the "competition got fi erce."

"Soon the teams started building one another up," Thigpen recalls. "People who had never exercised were exercising. They were purchasing elliptical machines and treadmills. One even ran in a marathon."

The fi rst year Smith was in a three-way tie for fi rst place, losing nine pounds. "I started exercising more, walking and riding a bike," Smith says. A few months after the fi rst competition, she relaxed her exercise routine and her diet. As a result, she gained back a couple of pounds. "I decided to join the competition again in 2008. This time I lost about seven pounds and I continued walking in the neighborhood, one to two miles a week." Smith bought a treadmill and began using it three to fi ve times a week. "That's a big difference for me," she says. "Before I did the fi rst competition I was pretty sedentary."

Because critical care nurses teach their patients about lifestyle changes, Thigpen thought it best to teach the teachers fi rst. "One of the things we teach is about diet," Thigpen says. "I thought to myself 'How can we teach patients if we are not healthy ourselves?' When patients see us and we are overweight, they don't follow our healthy teaching."

Thigpen, who is fi t and trim, didn't want her peers to think that she was pushing them into a fi tness routine. "I would talk with them if they were interested or needed encouragement," she says. "I would tell them don't go crazy at the gym. Start out small and moderate. They were receptive to that."

During the competition, team members would bring in healthy snacks to share and would post inspirational quotes up in the bathroom. "Before the competition they didn't care how they ate or if they exercised," Thigpen says.

The 2008 hospital-wide competition had fi ve teams with a total of 60 contestants. Each had to sign a contract that included their weight-loss goal. "They were encouraged to exercise," Thigpen says. "By the end of the competition they were able to tell you how to exercise healthy and how to eat. Even when they ate badly, they confessed at the weigh in."

The contracts also stressed that the contestants were supposed to have fun with the contest. "That was number eight on the contact," Thigpen says. "This year we also collected a $5 registration fee per member so the winning team of 12 (the Rehab team) received $245. This fi rst the winning team just got a pat on the back."

The team-building aspect was a success, as well. "It really built up their selfesteem," Thigpen says. "It's made them feel comfortable about their weight and it's lifted their spirits."

The competitions also played into Sentara's Mission: Health which encourages members to maintain healthy lifestyles and improve their health in order to keep medical costs down.

As extra incentive, Mission: Health includes a health coaching staff along with signifi cant discounts on medical premiums for individuals who have lowered their health risks. "After the fi rst quarter we had engagement from 90 percent of our employees," says Terrina Thomas, director of community health and prevention at Sentara Healthcare. "Our health coaches have been very busy and active."

HCA employees at CJW Medical Center in Richmond are also embracing healthy lifestyles. Nursing directors Carol Fox and Karen Moore chose to participate in the HCA Start! Challenge. As part of the American Heart Association's Start! initiative, HCA's program encourages participants to walk more, eat better and stay motivated. The six-month competition kicked off on April 15. The Challengers at HCA have set personal goals and agreed to walk at least fi ve days a week, do strength training two days each week and incorporate healthy eating into their lifestyles.

Fox and Moore, who both work on the Chippenham campus of CJW Medical Center, have different reasons for signing up for the Challenge. Fox, who sees patients with cardiac problems daily and has a family history of dysrhythmias, wanted to stay trim and fi t. "That was important to me," she says, adding that she's even getting her kids to exercise and eat better. "My 14-year-old daughter has lost about 12 pounds and it has built her confi dence. I've lost about fi ve pounds." Weight loss was the big motivator for Moore, who has also started a Jenny Craig program. "My father passed away last year, and with the stress I've put on some pounds," she says. "I've lost up to 25 pounds now."

One of Moore's goals is to go off of her cholesterol and hypertension medicines. "I want to do that by diet and exercise," she says. "I want to lose another 40 pounds."

Both women have to schedule exercise into their day. "If you wait for the time to come knock on your door, it's never going to happen," Fox says.

Fox has found over the years that many women are very critical of each other. "You really need to be supportive," she says. "The biggest thing you get out of this is being a support and having support. Building relationships with team members has been invaluable." That sentiment also holds true for maintenance mechanic Luis Quintero at Bon Secours St. Francis Health System. Quintero has coordinated two weight loss competitions for evening-shift personnel at the hospital. Many of the participants are nurses and technicians from the ER and MRI departments. The current competition started in April and will end in late July.

"We have 14 contenders," Quintero says. "Everyone pitches in $30 and the winner gets half of the money and the other half goes to secondand third-place winners."

Quintero started the competition because there were no activities for evening-shift workers that related to their health. "We wanted to get together and do something about our weight," he says, noting that his weight fl uctuates. "My journey has been a struggle."

The winner of the fi rst competition lost 37 pounds - the competition is based on percentage of weight loss, however. Participants can do whatever they choose to lose weight through diet and exercise.

"We encourage healthy ways of losing weight," Quintero says. "Each week we would have a challenge like parking farther away or walking stairs or exercising for 30 minutes." Quintero and his teammates are enjoying the competition, he says. "People here are really getting into this."