Max International’s Jason Russell has learned the methods needed to maintain a healthy weight and keep his other health scores, including cholesterol, in check through the help offered by The Apple Program®. When he started the program in 2010, his Apple Health CoachSM encouraged him to look at areas of his nutrition and exercise habits that could be improved to achieve the ideal health he desired. “I decided to set goals related to monitoring portions and engaging in cardio exercise,” notes Jason. “As the year went on I became stronger, built endurance, and gained tools needed to keep my eating habits in check.”
When the year began Jason said he was pretty diligent about using his at-home exercise bike. He started with 30 minute workouts four times a week and soon built to 45 minutes five and sometimes six days a week. When the weather warmed up, he was excited to resume his running program. He would take morning jogs around his neighborhood using electronic monitors to track his progress. He went from his usual 5K runs to more than four miles at a time. Jason states, “I used to joke with my kids when I got back from running that I had set a new world record. It's true, because no one else was running that route!”
Aside from focusing on exercise, Jason knew he needed to watch his eating habits. “I love to eat and cook, and the pleasures of food are often hard for me to resist. In that sense, limiting my portions has sometimes been a challenge, but I have become more comfortable with the idea that it's okay to feel a little hungry and there's nothing wrong with having, say, half a Cafe Rio burrito for lunch, and then having the other half the next day.”
To keep his food intake in check, Jason used an online tool to track his weight loss. The tool enabled him to enter his starting weight, how many pounds he wanted to lose, and how quickly. It then gave him a daily calorie budget to help him meet his goals. “My budget was 1,900 calories a day, but I was actually aiming for 1,400 daily calories for most of the summer. By the end of July, I was down to 161.9 pounds; I weighed 175 when I started. I was of course making healthy choices in my diet,” states Jason. Through the course of the year he made healthy substitutions in his eating habits, for example, he began using soy milk with his cereal and later transitioning to almond milk. “I was pretty confident that my efforts would show improvements in my cholesterol, and sure enough the assessment in December showed it had; the overall cholesterol number was down, the HDLs were up, and the LDLs were down.”
Jason has known for some time that he needed to take steps to reduce his cholesterol. “My doctor was not ready to put me on medication, but having worked now at a few places where wellness was a focus, I was aware of the implications of high cholesterol. My weight has never been much of a concern for me. I've been around 166-167 for years, but in the fall of 2009, my weight was slowly but steadily going up. I was hovering around 175 for awhile, with occasional spikes up to 179. I wanted to get back to where I had been instead of making 175 my new normal.”
Jason adds, “I had actually tried an online tool in the past but only briefly. I think working with The Apple Program gave me much more discipline to make the online tracker work for me. It was like a perfect storm of wellness. I can't imagine I would have been as successful without this program; it gave me the full awareness I needed. My Health Coach was also a great help. The monthly follow-up calls motivated me because I didn't want to report in that I hadn't done my ‘homework’ as it were. She gave me some good techniques, such as target heart rate, and gave me some good input on healthy snack choices. A previous employer had a wellness program, but the follow-up wasn't nearly as robust, so it made a big difference this go-around.”
“I feel like this program has made me more aware of what I'm taking in, in terms of calories. I have been running fairly regularly since 2005, but didn't see a concurrent drop in weight or improvement in my cholesterol. I believe the missing piece was a better understanding of how each calorie adds up. I had previously been careful about saturated fat in my diet, but of course the foods we eat all have calories. For example, I was shocked when I learned how many calories were in a serving of rice. Most people would probably consider rice to be quite healthy, and I agree with that but having the knowledge of its calorie content really opened my eyes. The arithmetic is pretty simple: to lose weight, you need to expend more calories than you take in, and having the follow-up of this program, coupled with the knowledge I was accumulating both from within and without the program, made it all happen.”
“The changes I’ve made have given me the confidence that if I see my biometrics heading in the wrong direction I know how to make better choices that will get me back on the healthy path. I'd also like to think that as my kids see my exercising four, five, and even six times a week, and making healthy dietary choices, they will be motivated to do the same. My advice to others is once you decide you are going to make a healthy change in your life, act on it immediately. Instead of telling yourself, ‘I’m going to start an exercise program next month.’ Why not start it now? Don't create barriers for yourself. Make a commitment that you will continue to work at it. Even if you can only run 400 meters today, you can be running five miles in just a few months!”
