Live Well Challenge creates lasting change

Cathy Gaylord was initially inspired to participate in the 2008 Live Well Challenge when she read that County Councilmember Dow Constantine and his staff won the Most Improved Team award in 2007. “I read it and thought, 'We’ve already got a great team, we can do this!’”

With Cathy at the helm, the nine member team from Public Health embraced the 2008 Live Well Challenge as an opportunity to establish healthier behaviors. Team members met weekly to try new fruits and vegetables, swap healthy recipes, go on lunchtime walks, and share stress reduction tips. Team member Laurie Petty even wrote a poem summarizing their experience:
    

Cathy Gaylord and the 2008 Live Well Challenge third place team, the Phytonutrient Nibblers.

    A Phytonutrient Nibbler I never thought I’d be.
    But here I am after 6 short weeks amazed as I can be!
    Alpha carotene, beta carotene, lutein, lycopene
    Words I’d always heard about but foreign, all to me!

    Carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, asparagus, celery and beets,
    Peppers, avocados, jicama, green beans and snap peas,
    Apples, peaches, grapes, and blueberries,
    Watermelon, star fruit, kiwi and some Rainier cherries.

    Water, water everywhere, drinking all the time!
    Crunching, munching, flossing, brushing - this is truly fine! 
    Exercising, farmers’ markets, stressing less, and sleeping more,
    All contribute to the points we’ve strived so hard to score!

    But most important, health aside, the camaraderie found
    From nine members working together, we are truly bound…
    To continue Living Well, no longer such a challenge,
    You see it’s now a way of life, achieving a health balance!

Leadership support makes change easier

In September 2008 a special awards ceremony was hosted by the Metropolitan King County Council to recognize and congratulate the top three point earning Live Well Challenge teams. Gaylord admits to being surprised that the ceremony was taken so seriously and to being impressed that former King County Executive Ron Sims and former Council Chair Julia Patterson participated in the ceremony. Most of her teammates had never been to the Council chambers, let alone for special recognition.

“To have Ron Sims and Julia Patterson read the proclamation was really special. It made us feel like we’d done something important …something that our leaders valued as much as we did. Their sentiment was genuine and on that day we felt like royalty.”

The efforts of this team during the six-week-long Live Well Challenge were significant. It’s what got them to the awards ceremony. But what happened after the event may be the most remarkable part of the story.

Lasting and unexpected change

In January 2009 the Phytonutrient Nibblers got together for a post-holiday lunch. Conversation eventually shifted to their shared experiences during the previous year’s Challenge and the life-changing effects of the event on the former teammates.

“One of my co-workers started talking about how the Live Well Challenge had changed her eating habits permanently – even when she wasn't trying, she couldn't help but eat right,” says  Gaylord, “Others chimed in with similar experiences. We originally changed our eating habits to earn points but at the lunch every team member reported that they had stuck with the new direction. We had embraced and internalized the habits without even realizing it.”

The former team captain says that she used to snack on cookies during the day but found that she felt better during the Challenge because she switched out the junk food for healthier items.

“The Live Well Challenge taught me that if I stick to snacking on fruits and vegetables at work it helps me to maintain my energy and sustain me. That is especially important because I work four 10s. There is no doubt that I feel better when I eat right.”

Cathy says that participation in the competition has also had a positive impact at home. “My husband has reformed his ways just from watching me eat!” says Gaylord. “I wanted to win. So I talked about food a lot. That seemed to flip a switch in his brain that made him change his own eating habits.”

There were other changes too. When Gaylord completed her Wellness Assessment in January of 2009, she realized the longer term impacts of the change, “When I took the Wellness Assessment questionnaire I discovered that my score had improved from last year because I had better eating habits and had tried to lower my cholesterol.”

The team spirit and the efforts to improve personal health by Cathy and her teammates prove that taking small steps toward better health can lead to lasting change, “I did not abandon the changes after the Challenge. I embraced them and now they have become permanent.”