As healthy eating habits get put on the back burner, employee wellbeing suffers. Overweight employees are at higher risk for developing preventable and reversible lifestyle conditions such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer.
Employers pay an additional $1,500 to insure an obese employee versus a healthy weight employee. Research shows that even a modest reduction of body weight can reduce the expected lifetime healthcare costs of obesity-related diseases by $2,200 to $5,300.
Our signature weight loss program is designed to motivate and inspire employees to make healthy lifestyle changes that will affect them for years to come. The interactive easy-to-follow format assists employees to make simple and effective changes in everyday habits to keep the weight off for life!
Participants learn to incorporate label reading, exercise, smart grocery shopping techniques and healthy meal planning into their lives. They also learn about the mind-body connection, rarely covered in most programs, and how to make a life-long transformation. Our weight management team consists of dietetic technicians and registered nutritionists accustomed to working with corporate populations.
4-Week Jump Start
Are you feeling tired or sluggish? Do you have lack or focus or “brain fog?” Get frequent headaches or muscle aches?
Our 4-week Jump Start program is a great way to start your transition into healthy living. Topics include: cleaning out your pantry, health assessment questionnaire, elimination-diet guidelines, the “Dirty Dozen” of produce and reducing exposure to toxins in your home.
Week 1: Health questionnaire, introduction to how simple nutrition and lifestyle changes can improve overall health. Homework - 7-day food/fitness journal, pantry-cleaning guide and jumpstart healthy foods shopping list.
Week 2: In depth discussion of the “nuts-and-bolts” of a healthy eating plan, specific foods, recipes and daily menu guidelines.
Week 3: Benefits of eating organic, identifying the “Dirty Dozen” foods to avoid, overcoming challenges.
Week 4: Making changes to transition into healthier habits, follow-up heath questionnaire to evaluate progress.
5-Week Blood Pressure Control
One in three American adults has elevated blood pressure. Known as “the silent killer,” high blood pressure can go undetected for years and strike without warning. This program is designed to help participants learn how to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk for heart disease through healthy lifestyle changes. We will discuss how food choices, stress management and physical activity play a role in maintaining healthy blood pressure. **Participants are encouraged to bring their most recent cholesterol test result to class.
Week 1: Know your numbers** - “good” and “bad” cholesterol and what the lab test numbers mean, behaviors, heredity and health conditions - what causes elevation and/or reduction,
tracking your cholesterol - obtaining and maintaining optimal levels, learn, how to follow a heart healthy diet.
Week 2: Nutrition and meal planning - carbs, fats and proteins, cholesterol-lowering foods, reading a food label, developing a game plan and shopping list.
Week 3: The role of cholesterol in the body, cholesterol-inflammation connection and how this contributes to heart disease, body weight and body fat distribution, the role of medications - side-effects and reducing and/or eliminating your dependence.
Week 4: Food and recipes, dining out, supplements, tips to prevent and reverse heart disease risk.
Week 5: How to maintain healthy cholesterol levels for life, action plan for nutrition, exercise and stress reduction, closure and evaluation.
5-Week Cholesterol Management
High cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease - the #1 killer of both men and women. Over half of all Americans over age 20 currently have elevated cholesterol levels. Every 1% decrease in LDL “bad” cholesterol can lower your risk of heart disease by 1%. Geared toward those with borderline high or high cholesterol, this program provides tools, resources and instruction for improving cholesterol so that medications can be avoided or reduced.
Week 1: Overview of heart disease and how to evaluate your risk factors, guidelines and health risks associated with high blood pressure, behaviors and health conditions that cause elevation and/or reduction, action plan - ‘The Big 3’, tracking your blood pressure and obtaining optimal levels.
Week 2: The role of sodium - hidden sources of sodium, reading a food label, dining out, how to make realistic changes in your diet, making a shopping list.
Week 3: Natural ways to lower blood pressure including, exercise, supplements, biofeedback, weight loss and stress management.
Week 4: Stress management solutions for lowering blood pressure, ‘The Big 3’ revisited, website resources.
Week 5: Develop a personalized healthy heart plan by using all the techniques previously discussed.
5-Week Smoking Cessation
Tobacco use is a leading cause of workers' lost production time - greater than alcohol abuse or family emergencies. Quitting smoking or even just cutting back, improves productivity. Our smoking cessation program will help your employees plan a successful quit attempt by providing essential information, identifying smoking triggers, teaching skills for coping with cravings and group support.
Tools include but not limited to: “Nicotine Addiction Test,” “Why You Smoke” questionnaire, National Cancer Institute “Clearing the Air” booklet and the “Stop Smoking Contract.” **Participants are encouraged to choose a quit date that falls within the 5-week program.
Week 1: Introduction to quitting smoking, nicotine dependence, smoking triggers, smoker types and benefits of not smoking.
Week 2: Develop a quit plan - quitting methods, nicotine withdrawal and setting a quit date**
Week 3: Nicotine replacement therapy.
Week 4: Discussion about weight gain concerns and the importance of seeking support from friends and family.
Week 5: Staying smoke free for life, benefits of not smoking, strategies for avoiding triggers and avoiding long-term cravings.
Every session includes a presentation of the week’s topic, group discussion and assignments/homework. Tools include but not limited to: “Nicotine Addiction Test,” “Why You Smoke” questionnaire, National Cancer Institute “Clearing the Air” booklet and the “Stop Smoking Contract.” **Participants are encouraged to choose a quit date that falls within the 5-week program.
5-Week Stress Solutions
Although stress is a natural reaction, we now live and work with levels of stress that can be truly damaging over time. People with highly stressful lives and jobs are at a higher risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, digestive issues and others. Effectively identifying stressful triggers and learning techniques to manage stress will result in improved health, productivity and morale for the individual – and a healthier bottom line for the company in the form of lower absenteeism and higher productivity. Each class will focus on different stress management techniques including: journaling, breathing techniques, goal setting and physical activity.
Week 1: What is stress and how does it affect your body? Stress and its negative effect on health, journaling to identify sources of stress, stress assessment questionnaire.
Week 2: Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals to relieve stress.
Week 3: Food and mood – emotional food cravings and the top 10 “Good Mood Foods.”
Week 4: Mindful meditations, progressive relaxation and breathing techniques.
Week 5: Move your body to calm your mind - stretches and easy “office yoga” poses to relieve stress and keep you energized.
10-Week Mastering Pre-Diabetes, Diabetes & Heart Disease
$13 billion a year is spent on diabetes drugs. If someone is overweight, losing just 10 to 20 pounds may improve their blood sugar control so much that they can stop taking or reduce their medication. This program addresses the prevention and reversal of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Participants will explore the relationship between the two conditions and work to make long-term lifestyle changes (nutrition, exercise, behavioral change). Topics to be addressed include emotional eating, the role of exercise, carbohydrate counting and nutrition. The program works to instill confidence and self-efficacy in reducing, preventing and/or managing chronic health conditions; raising HDL cholesterol; reducing/eliminating dependence on medications; reduction of LDL cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure. We will address other risk factors of heart disease and diabetes, including the role of being over-weight, metabolic syndrome, stress and physical activity.
Week 1: The facts about diabetes, pre-diabetes and heart disease (prevention causes, etc.), introduction to carb counting (reading and interpreting labels), tracking your blood sugar.
Week 2: Carbs, fats and proteins, eating to beat diabetes, body weight, physical activity.
Week 3: Practical portions - portion control’s role in blood sugar and weight management, introduction to meal planning (ingredients, reading labels and more).
Week 4: The role of the mind-body connection in disease
management, introduction to blood sugar, physical activity and
exercise.
Week 5: Continue last week’s fitness and physical activity - an action plan, website resources for diabetes and heart disease, cooking and preparing food - using food to control your blood sugar.
Week 6: Top 5 lifestyle tips, diabetes prevention program - implications and applications.
Week 7: Cooking tips, examining emotional eating.
Week 8: Navigating a restaurant menu, remarkable recipes.
Week 9: Creating your own exercise and nutrition plan for diabetes and heart disease management, prevention or reversal.
Week 10: Refining your plan, class closure and evaluation.
Also Available:
One-On-One Counseling (on-site)
On-site 15 to 30-minute private sessions with a health coach.
Virtual Counseling
Convenient on-line and telephone sessions with a health coach.
