I LOVE My Girlfriend!

A member of our community, who happens to also be a dear dear friend, recently returned from a business trip. She shared an experience that struck me about the collective power of our healthy journeys!

She happens to be a highly placed executive with a huge well known corporation. She is responsible for (among many other things) how all the benefit programs are designed and offered to all employees', including health insurance. She was visiting a manufacturing plant to communicate a new health insurance package for 2011. Evidently, at this plant there is a high percentage of really overweight employees (think t-shirts ordered in size 8X for some employees). Now, this company offers many very progressive health forward programs that go unused by many people. As she addressed the groups of employees, she used the opportunity to stress the benefits of making healthy choices in life to help the company try to avoid having to increase benefit costs in the future. She stressed how much unhealthy choices, such as poor eating habits, lack of exercise and smoking, were costing the company (and ultimately costing the employees with unhealthful outcomes from obesity such as diabetes, heart problems, etc.). She did an amazing job of weaving real life examples, many of them personal, into her presentation to try to inspire more people to decide it was time for them to make more healthy choices.

Her story struck me about the power of how many of us are engage in our own healthy journey, and how our efforts are like stones dropped in the water that create ripples that travel outward. The power of our little ripples go far beyond our own lives! Think about the power of my friend's decision to decide to share her knowledge of healthy choices and potentially influence hundreds of these employees. It is exciting to think about who among them was motivted to begin their own healthy journey and begin to make better choices and ultimately reap the benefits of a healthier life!

Don't hesitate to share your own story and create your own healthy ripples! Share your power and experience the positive energy of paying it forward!

P.S. I have already shed the 2 pounds that I picked up while enjoying my birthday celebrations!

Desire to share our lives with others. Dedication to caring about others. Discipline to practice what we "preach"!