Mid-life Losers

Geraldine Barnes is one of Pam Tegtmeier’s favorite "poster children" for the College wellness program. In her early fifties, the College custodian has dropped forty-two pounds and two dress sizes in just two years of walking, lifting weights, and watching her diet. More impressively, her body fat has dropped from 35 to 25 percent. Tegtmeier’s weight management class taught Barnes to keep track of how much she was eating and to understand things like portion size and the basic food groups. Take granola bars – "once you start reading labels, you realize they’re not so healthy, too much sugar and fat." Barnes says she has "100 percent more energy, and I walk circles around most twenty-year-olds."

Jim Hartman, a mathematics professor in his early fifties, learned to fine-tune his health through a wellness evaluation with Tegtmeier. A veteran of campus hoops at noon three times a week, Hartman was aerobically fit, but his cholesterol was high. In addition to watching his fat intake, Hartman agreed to add some weight training – once a week – and 150 abdominal crunches a day. After six months, "I saw definite trimming, my weight dropped some along with my cholesterol, and I felt more energetic." Unfortunately, Hartman has backslid a bit due to a heavy workload. Still, he knows now what he has to do to achieve overall fitness, and he knows he can do it.