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Keeping fit and strong can take lots of time and cost a bundle: There’s gym membership fees, special clothing and equipment, not to mention pricey foods. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Employees from all over Children’s Hospital Boston are devising ingenious ways to keep fit and healthy without breaking the bank.
If you hear salsa beats and peals of laughter emanating out of 1 Autumn Street around 5 p.m., don’t be alarmed. A group of employees from Human Resources (HR) are running an exercise class, called Get Moving After Work. "We thought, instead of hiring an instructor, why not have people bring in their own exercise DVDs and do workouts together?" says Tess Monteyro, senior compensation analyst, who, along with fellow Compensation Analyst Luisa Maun, organized the program. They recruited other HR employees to scour their houses for old instructional videos gathering dust, and asked them to bring them in to broadcast in an empty auditorium after work. The program circumvents the cost of an instructor, and transforms solitary at-home workouts into entertaining group activities. "It’s fun and it’s free," says Monteyro. The variety of DVDs—like "Hip Hop Abs" and "Dance off the Inches: Sizzling Salsa"—keeps the class feeling fresh. The low-cost workouts were originally only for Human Resource employees, but Monteyro and Maun envision opening the program up to the wider Children’s community if there’s interest.
In addition to the exercise class, the women also created a weight-loss program for their department that uses small amounts of money to motivate participants. Studies have found that weight-loss programs that reward participants financially if they lose weight (and docks them money if they don’t) provide a powerful incentive to meet fitness goals. Maun was inspired to establish a weight-loss challenge after a friend had a successful experience. "I wanted to encourage a healthier mindset," she says. "The idea was to work toward attainable goals and have moderate change." She conceived of an eight-week program, with a deposit of $10 to participate. Participants were encouraged to lose one pound per week, or risk paying the consequences. On the fourth week, there was a weigh-in. If they hadn’t lost four pounds, they had to pay $5 for every pound not lost. But if they did lose weight, they got to share in the profits.
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Maun named it the Get More Fit Challenge, because "just because you’re fit doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get more fit," she says. Ten Children’s employees took the challenge, which began in April. "People were excited but also nervous about having to weigh in," she says. Maun bought a scale and put it by her desk. Every week, participants trickled in to be weighed, and Maun tracked the numbers on a spreadsheet. "No one would see but me," she says, chuckling.
In June, the results were tallied: The total combined weight loss was 53.4 pounds. Two winners lost between 10 and 11 pounds and won $50 each. Maun is hoping to have another challenge in the winter. "It was a success," she says. "We had people who consistently lost a pound a week."
Sharon Gilligan, RN, who works in the Department of Orthopedics, favors another approach to low-budget workouts. According to Gilligan, there’s really only one thing you need to get fit: sneakers. Since she started at Children’s in 1983, Gilligan has inspired countless coworkers to give running a try. A fearless marathon runner (she has clocked more than 30 marathons), Gilligan is known for her boundless energy and enthusiasm, especially about her favorite subject. "I tell people that they could join a gym if they want to get fit, but the easiest thing to do is buy themselves a good pair of running shoes and go out the door," she says. "It’s not a big time commitment and it’s the best exercise."
Gilligan wasn’t always the epitome of health. At 29, with two young children, Gilligan was a smoker with little energy. One day, as she was huffing and puffing up a flight of stairs, she had a realization. "I thought to myself, if anything ever happened to these kids, if they were drowning or something, I wouldn’t be able to save them because I’m in such horrible shape." She gave up smoking and started to run. It was an uphill battle. "I’d feel terrible," she says. The first goal was convincing her body to run a single mile. "I was so proud of myself when I got up to two," she recalls. Five years after she began running, Gilligan ran her first marathon in Bermuda. Inspired by her own health transformation, Gilligan began mentoring colleagues. She’d go on long training runs along the river after work, and invite others to join her. She even organized and held a yearly five-mile race for Sports Medicine, on Nantasket Beach in Hull. Now, the 62-year-old is a private running coach and holds a handful of medals for her accomplishments.
Her advice to beginner runners is to take it slow. "Baby steps," she says. "Pick a block and just walk a little bit, run a couple minutes, walk another three of four minutes." The bottom line: Regardless of how you chose to exercise, it’s just important to do it. "Anyone can do it," says Gilligan.
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Start small
Even adding as little as 15 minutes of exercise to your day can make a big difference. Instead of riding the elevator, stretch your legs and take the stairs. If you commute by bus or train, get off one stop early and walk a block. At home, hide the remote when you’re watching TV so you have to get up to change the channel. If you sit at a desk at work, incorporate small exercises into your day, like shoulder rolls and knee lifts.
Improvise
You don’t need lots of fancy equipment to get into shape. At home, grab two soup cans to do a set of tricep extensions and bicep curls. Instead of spending money on expensive 100-calorie snack packs, make your own by buying cost-effective family-size bags of low sodium popcorn or pretzels, and split them up into reasonable portions.
Find a friend
The easiest way to keep up an active, health-focused routine is to make it fun. Find a work friend who you can walk with at lunch, compare tasty and nutritional recipes with and encourage to meet your mutual fitness goals.
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