Small Steps, Big Strides

Getting Fit can be as simple as going back to the basics.

by Lisa Watts

She stands just five-foot-four, in her best running shoes. But the sight of Pam Tegtmeier on campus strikes anything from fear to reverence in the cardiovascular systems of Wooster employees.

Tegtmeier serves as wellness coordinator at the College through a contract with the Wooster YMCA. She offers classes and programs such as her Boot Camp, in which she leads a diverse group – faculty, custodians, vice presidents –through their paces for a month. She has helped hundreds of employees eat better, exercise more, lose body fat, and build strength.

The College launched the wellness program in 2002 to enhance Wooster’s self-funded group health plan. The voluntary program features one-on-one evaluations with Tegtmeier twice a year. After measuring for strength, flexibility, aerobic fitness, and body fat, Tegtmeier draws up individualized plans for exercise, nutrition, and other wellness concerns.

Employees who see Tegtmeier, a marathoner, running around town in all kinds of weather may assume that she’d offer extreme advice. Instead, her basic approach is equal parts common sense and encouragement. It seems to work.

First off, inspire us. Tell us a few of your favorite success stories.

One man stopped smoking through our smoking cessation class. He had smoked since he was five years old. He was up to two packs a day, now he just smokes an occasional cigarette. He has a child at home now and finally is motivated.

One of our senior citizens has dropped fourteen pounds since we started. She hardly ever exercised; now she lifts weights and comes to exercise classes. She took the nutrition class. She is seventyish, and her doctors are impressed with her strength.

There’s a woman, fiftyish, who dropped from 195 pounds down to 162 in a little more than a year. She just decided, "This is it." She took the weight management class and bought herself a treadmill. Her body fat dropped ten percentage points. Her cardio test went from poor to good. She looks like a different person.

So a middle-aged man or woman really can change his or her body shape?

Age shouldn’t be a deterrent. It sounds corny, but it’s truly never too late to start exercising and being more careful about what you eat.

What most people need is help with time management. If you need to, make an appointment with yourself, schedule in exercise the way you would an appointment.

You can always do crunches and stretch in front of the TV.

I’ll never forget a line I once heard Jane Brody, the wellness writer for The New York Times, say, "Try to die young, as late in life as possible."

Your initial evaluation includes measuring body fat, with calipers. Why do you do this? What are normal levels?

With calipers, I take measurements at the triceps (back of the upper arm), the abdomen, ileum (side), and the top of the thigh, or quadriceps. I add all those numbers together, then look that number up on charts of norms for age and gender. The average body fat for men is between sixteen and eighteen percent; for women it’s twenty-one to twenty-five percent. Those are our goals.

View Page: 1 | 2