16th annual weight loss challenge to begin
Going on its 16th year, the Grand Health Challenge of 2022 is going to kick off in January to help motivate people to lose weight as part of their New Year’s resolution.
Community Outreach Coordinator Jenni Miller, of the Grand Lake Health System, is pretty excited for the event itself. Now organized entirely by the GLHS, it was originally started with the help of the Wapakoneta Daily News and the Evening Leader in 2007 as a way to make a positive change in the public’s health.
“It’s basically a program designed for our participants to adapt to a healthier lifestyle, whether that’s eating healthier, losing weight, being active,” stated Miller. “Typically everyone walks away learning one of those few things. But the overall goal of the challenge is through weight loss.”
Miller said the challenge is a popular program and more than 6,000 individuals have participated, having collectively lost around 49,301 pounds. Participants can join in teams of two to seven members, and are required to weigh in monthly January through May.
“They attend the weigh-ins and the team that has the greatest percentage of weight lost is the winner at the end of the challenge,” Miller explained.
There are various prizes for the first and second place teams, the first and second “biggest loser,” attendance raffle prizes and the Garmin Watch drawing.
“In general, we usually average anywhere between 300 to 500 participants per year,” she said.
With the grand prize being $1,000, as well as the various physical and mental health benefits for losing the weight, Miller does encourage people to participate. The only people that will be unable to win any monetary prizes are those that have won on a team or individually within the past three years.
Evening meetings will also be a big part of the challenge, with one scheduled for each month to inform people about ways to keep on improving their health. These, according to Miller, aim to make sure these changes to their lifestyle become more permanent as time goes on.
“We focus on different things like exercise, meal prepping, grocery store tours and also our kick off meeting,” said Miller.
The meetings are scheduled to occur on Jan. 18, Feb. 15 March 15, April 19 and May 24. Participants will meet either at the St. Marys Memorial High School Auditorium, St. Marys Kroger or the Grand Lake/pre mier Health YMCA.
They also have a program in volving repeat participants. In order to make sure people stick with it and end up working to wards a long term goal, GLHS will reward some of the par ticipants that can keep the weight off.
“We have received lots of pos itive comments and reviews about the challenge,” Miller said, explaining the Master Maintainer program. This pro gram is available for people who come in each year and end up losing weight consis tently during each program. “And the person who has main tained the greatest weight loss from January of 2021 will be crowned our Master Maintain er. So there’s also additional prizes associated with that.”
The theme this year will be the Five Foundations of Health: Back to the Basics; registration is on-going and ends Jan. 5. Registration forms can be found at https://bit.ly/3pzybbj and anyone with questions is asked to contact Miller at 419 394-6132 or email her at jenmiller@jtdmh.org.