We thrilled to introduce a recent Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less participant, Ellen. Ellen shares her incredible journey and experience with Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less. Congratulations, Ellen!
I wanted to share the success of my experience in Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less with my instructor, Greg, and my Tuesday 11:00am group this past fall. As a professor, I made my New Year’s resolutions in August (unlike everyone else), and this program was on my list. I learned so much, and my SMART goals were very modest. So many times I had tried on my own to achieve better health and weight management only to fail, but with my children starting to get obese readings at their pediatricians, now was the time I had to act. My SMART Goal was to lose 6 pounds and exercise 30 min 3x a week. That was it.
Here is the email that I sent to my instructor, Greg, at the end of our class:
“Oh my goodness, Greg, where to start? 18 pounds?!?! How did I do that? Through all the great things I learned in Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less – that’s how! With an amazing instructor!! About 75% of the info stuck, and that’s what did it. I plan to take the class again to reinforce what I learned and pick up the other 25%, taking another swing at my 30 min, 3x a week goal. I never quite got that set by finding what exactly worked for me – found LOTS of things that didn’t work. BUT I did walk a lot more, and tried my very best. I’m going to keep at it.
You have changed my life, and that of my 4 immediate family members as well, and for that, I am very grateful. I can’t thank you enough for equipping me/us with what we needed to know. Hope to see you again next semester! Everything is better the second time, right? 🙂 To start moving even more and even get that t-shirt!”
My overall stats were starting in at 204 lbs at 5’6″, with a BMI of 32.93. I finished the program at 186 lbs, with a BMI of 30.02. My body fat percentage went down from 42.05% to 39.04%. My blood pressure went from 121/79 to 113/78. I lost 5 inches in my waist as well. I did walk more, although I never did get the exercise thing down like I wanted. I tracked every morsel of food for all 15 weeks – still do – with a target of 0.5 pound a week (instructor’s suggestion) – and I had amazing results. I learned something new every week that helped me and spreading it out over all that time so that I could focus was critical to my being able to comprehend all of it and put it into practice. Moving from a BMI of Obese to merely Overweight has given me the motivation to take 2017 to get to a healthy BMI range.
So, I’ve just signed up for a second round of Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less to try to get that exercise bit into my life more intently, and to reinforce all of the nutrition information I learned the first time around.
I just wanted to say thank you. Greg is fantastic, and this program is pretty amazing as well.
I lost 12 lbs on the 15 week program. My diet has always been relatively good – it’s mostly about exercise for me. But I have learned a LOT in this class and have definitely become more mindful of both diet and movement. Greg is a great instructor. I think his personality, delivery style and enthusiastic connection really kept me on track- I looked forward to classes and didn’t want to miss any! Will miss my Monday classes and may try to enroll in another.