Columbus Community Hospital offers weight loss and healthy lifestyle program online

Dan Wolfe had tried to get healthy through diet and exercise.

He joined a weight loss program and religiously worked out twice a day. He was successful in losing 85 pounds, but his workout plan was so rigorous that he injured his back and knee. The injuries threw off his routine, and because he didn’t make the right changes to what he ate, the weight he lost soon returned.

Wolfe tried other diets throughout the years. Some worked but only for a short period. When his doctor suggested a program that promotes more of a plant-based diet and focuses overall health and wellbeing, he decided to try it.

At first, he wasn’t too sure about the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) offered through Columbus Community Hospital’s Occupational Health Services. The idea of changing his diet to focus more on plants was going to be a challenge for a “meat-and-potatoes guy.” But he discovered through the 12-week program that CHIP is not like anything he tried before because losing weight isn’t the main focus.

“It’s not a weight-loss program. Our motto is living your best life. That is what we try to help people do,” said Dr. Luke Lemke, a physician at Columbus Medical Center.

CHIP has been offered through CCH for four years. Facilitators like Lemke host hour-long sessions that include a lecture or video and then time for questions and answers. The sessions focus on improving one’s lifestyle through healthier diets, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, gratitude, forgiveness and mindfulness. Typically, the sessions are held in person, but that has switched to virtual meetings because of the pandemic.

Participants have baseline, midpoint and endpoint lab work done, as well as biometrics that include blood pressure, pulse, waist circumference and weight, to monitor their progress as they move through the program.

CHIP, which started more than 20 years ago, has proven to help people improve chronic conditions like hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Participants, though, do not have to have a chronic disease to take part in CHIP.

“It’s not geared toward any specific disease or illness. Anybody can take it,” Lemke said. “We’ve had people as young as 16 and as old as 84. Anyone can benefit from the information we give out no matter what stage of life they are in. It’s for people who are looking to feel better and be healthier.”

Wolfe, who enrolled in the class with his wife, just finished his last session of CHIP this month. He has seen his health improve in a number of ways. He lost about 50 pounds, sleeps better and has less inflammation.

“I’m not working out near as hard as I did years ago. It’s more about the food I’m eating and the choices we are making in the kitchen. Once we got partway through the program, we both started feeling better and were able to exercise and be more active. That snowballed into additional weight loss,” Wolfe said.

“CHIP is absolutely about lifestyle change. It is about making choices.”

Kari Brock is a past participant. She took part in CHIP in 2017 and again in early 2020. Her motivation was to learn more about general health and wellbeing from a reliable source. That is when she looked into CHIP.

“I figured that if the hospital was promoting the program, then it must be the best resource to go to,” Brock said.

Brock, who works at home health and hospice services at CCH, learned a lot the first time she took CHIP, but signed up again as a refresher.

“I don’t know if I was quite ready the first time for the amount of information I was going to be given. I thought it was going to be things I heard before, but a lot of it was new. Rewatching the videos for a second time was eye-opening. I caught so many things I didn’t the first time,” she said.

What she appreciates most is that she said CHIP isn’t an all-or-nothing program. “You can take what you want from it and apply it to your life,” she said.

Brock has incorporated a lot of what she learned into her life and has continued with the monthly support group called Club CHIP, which is for people who have successfully completed the CHIP program.

Gene Vis, who is the Platte County Lifestyle Coalition coordinator, is another recent CHIP graduate. Like Wolfe, he too experienced weight loss losing about 25 pounds, but he said the program is about more than just slimming down. It’s about being healthier on the inside, too. He feels he will be able to do that with what he learned from CHIP.

“I visited a lot of people in nursing homes when I was a pastor. Some were in their 90s and others were in their 70s. I told myself that I didn’t want to be on that end of the spectrum being in a nursing home when I was 70. I want to be as healthy as I can be as long as I can be,” Vis said.

The next CHIP program will begin Jan. 4. Two hour-long sessions will be available virtually at noon and 5:30 p.m. Cost is $220, which includes class material, lectures and lab work. Registration is required by Dec. 28 and can be done by contacting Danielle Frewing, director of Occupational Health Services, at dafrewing@columbushosp.org or 402-562-4480.

Lemke said now is a great time to take part in CHIP, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic. People with underlying health issues like obesity, diabetes and heart disease are at risk of developing severe symptoms if they get COVID-19.

“We need to be aware of that now. We need to be as healthy as we can because who knows how long this pandemic will be around. This is a perfect time to get as healthy as we can. You don’t have to wait six months. The results are measurable within weeks through the CHIP lifestyle changes,” Lemke said.

For more information about CHIP, click here.