CHIP grads embark on new lifestyle of healthy eating

By LeAnne Gompf -

Spero Well­ness hosted their first com­mence­ment pro­gram for their CHIP par­tic­i­pants Fri­day evening at the Trin­ity United Methodist Church in Mount Gilead.

CHIP, a Com­plete Health Improve­ment Pro­gram is a nation­ally rec­og­nized pro­gram under the local direc­tion of Dr. Melissa McRae and Stephanie Grand­staff. National Founder and Direc­tor Hans Diehl was on hand to cel­e­brate with the first CHIP grad­u­ates and offered the fol­low­ing words of encour­age­ment, “Health is not every­thing but with­out it, every­thing is nothing.”

His infor­ma­tive and often humor­ous keynote address to the grad­u­ates and their guests encour­aged and pro­moted con­tin­ued suc­cess by choos­ing a health­ier lifestyle. He talked of the advan­tages of CHIP in revers­ing high blood pres­sure, los­ing weight with­out diet­ing (EAT MORE AND WEIGH LESS), stop heart dis­ease and stroke, slow down osteo­poro­sis, lower cho­les­terol, turn around dia­betes, reduce depres­sion and increase energy.

Accord­ing to USA today (usatoday.com – severely-obese-americans): “The per­cent­age of Amer­i­can adults who are 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight has sky­rock­eted since 2000,” a study released Mon­day shows. In 2010, about 6.6% of adults in this coun­try were severely obese — about 15.5 mil­lion peo­ple — up from 3.9% in 2000, says the study from the RAND Corp., a non-profit research group.

“There is no ques­tion that severe obe­sity is going up very fast,” says lead author Roland Sturm, a senior econ­o­mist at RAND. “Severe obe­sity has severe effects on qual­ity of life, chronic con­di­tions and health care costs.’”

The local pro­gram grew out of a con­cern by Dr. McRae for a health­ier com­mu­nity and a more pre­ven­tive approach to health care. The suc­cess of the first grad­u­at­ing class speaks for the ele­ments of the pro­gram. The CHIP pro­gram is designed to pre­vent, arrest­ing and revers­ing chronic disease.

“In Mor­row County we have 30% rates in dia­betes, hyper­ten­sion, coro­nary artery dis­ease is our num­ber 2 killer. We brought the CHIP pro­gram to Mor­row County in an effort to have a health­ier com­mu­nity and county. The Com­plete Health Improve­ment Pro­gram (CHIP) is a “plant strong” nutri­tional diet; an afford­able, lifestyle enrich­ment designed to reduce health risk though the adop­tion of bet­ter eat­ing and health habits, mod­er­ate exer­cise and appro­pri­ate lifestyle mod­i­fi­ca­tions. I am thrilled with the suc­cess of our first graduates.”

The results speak for them­selves. Col­lec­tively, the 10 par­tic­i­pants shed 70 pounds dur­ing the 8-week pro­gram (11.6 % to their MBI); all 10 par­tic­i­pants had nor­mal blood pres­sure with decreased med­i­cines or elim­i­na­tion of med­i­cine; pill count per day for par­tic­i­pants went from 70 pills per day to 39 pills per day; 80% of par­tic­i­pants are off cho­les­terol med­i­cines; and the 10 par­tic­i­pants walked over 2.8 mil­lion steps for a group that admit­tedly did not exer­cise. CHIP pro­gram can be described as a pow­er­ful yet sim­ple 30-day, world-class lifestyle edu­ca­tion program.

Per­sonal tes­ti­mony was given by two of the CHIP grad­u­ates, Judy Brown and Roger Reed. “It has been fun learn­ing new, inno­v­a­tive things and try­ing new recipes. I have lost 17 pounds in 8 weeks and I feel so much bet­ter,” com­mented Judy. She went on to say, “I am off 3 of my med­ica­tions and know this a plan I will con­tinue for a lifetime.”

Grad­u­ate Roger Reed has Barrett’s esoph­a­gus dis­ease and was expe­ri­enc­ing severe panic attacks as a result of the cor­rec­tive surgery. He cred­its the CHIP pro­gram with lower cho­les­terol (253 to 164), weight loss, increased energy and new out­look on life.

“If I can live by exam­ple for oth­ers and an so glad to share the pro­gram. I pas­tor a church and decided that I needed to take care of myself before I could take care of my peo­ple. CHIP was the best deci­sion I have made in a long time. I choose to be healthy,” con­cluded Roger.

The first grad­u­at­ing class con­sisted of Judy Brown, Helen Far­ring­ton, Jen­nifer Kissos, David Jack­son, Myrna Paul, Patti Ray, Tom Ray, Mar­i­lyn Rea, Roger Reed and Linda Roscoe. The next pro­gram will be in Feb­ru­ary and will run for 8 weeks with an infor­ma­tional meet­ing will be held in Jan­u­ary. For more infor­ma­tion you may call Dr. McRae’s office at 419–946-1085.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.