Healthy eating, exercising producing results

Whole Foods Market employee Eva Clark loves pizza and calls herself a connoisseur of  chocolate chip cookies.

But after going on an all-expenses paid healthy eating program in Naples, Florida last year, Clark learned how to eat healthier and decided to cut dairy products out of her diet for six months. She saw her clothes literally “fall off” as she lost 32 pounds.

Clark said her main goal in attending the program was to reduce her high cholesterol levels. The week-long immersion program gave her much more, though – a change in lifestyle. Clark works at Whole Foods’ administrative support office at 1821 30th St. in Boulder.

No meat. Minimal sodium. No vegetables cooked in olive oil, which has zero nutritional value, Clark pointed out.

Instead, Clark likes to make huge salads for lunch and eats lots of steamed veggies. Instead of eating ice cream in the evening, these days Clark usually goes for a smoothie made with frozen fruit, nuts and yogurt.

She tries to exercise as often as possible, even if it’s only a walk outside of her building for 15 minutes. Clark said she now has a love for spin classes and does yoga several times a week.

And if she really craves something – say a chocolate chip cookie or an ice cream bar – She finds the yummiest treat she can and then spends time enjoying how much pleasure she gets from eating it.

Some of Clark’s Whole Foods colleagues who have gone through the immersion programs have never exercised in their lives, she said. So it was exciting to see many of the program attendees check in a couple months after the program ended to say they were able to reduce their medicine doses or end taking them altogether.

If you have been paying attention in the last couple of years, you have heard how healthy eating can help ward off disease.

Whole Foods Market takes it one step farther – testing all of its employees in four basic lifestyle areas – smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol and body mass index.

Employees who meet basic standards of health in terms of the four tests receive 20 percent off of all shopping they do at Whole Foods stores. Employees who are found to be more healthy can get higher levels of discounts, topping out at a total of 30 percent off their purchases.

For example, one Whole Foods board member pointed to his blood pressure of 118 over 75 as something that helped him get a “more healthy” rating. The standard blood pressure rate in the United States is 120 over 80.

Based on the baseline numbers, the “unhealthiest of the unhealthy” employees are invited to participate in immersion programs, which cost an estimated $5,000 or so per employee.

 So far, 43 employees working at Whole Foods stores in the Rocky Mountain region have gone through the program (27 stores in Colorado New Mexico, Kansas and Utah), according to Ben Friedland, a Whole Foods spokesman.

Those who attended the program have a built-in support network with their colleagues – sharing recipes with each other and supporting healthy lifestyle choices. And the Whole Foods prepared foods offer many choices to folks who are too busy to cook at home, Clark said.

As a result, Clark said she feels much better – sleeping through the entire night, waking up in the morning ready to start the day and not getting tired in the afternoons.

It’s too early to tell how the immersion programs have affected the company’s insurance premiums, Friedland said. But it’s something the company expects to benefit from in the future, he said.

In fact, the immersion programs for employees have been so well-received that Whole Foods now is piloting “wellness clubs” for customers at five stores in the United States, Friedland said.

Depending on how things go, the Boulder store might get a “wellness club,” Friedland said. Such clubs – which customers pay to join – offer cooking classes, tips about healthy eating and the like.

In the meantime, Clark said one of the benefits of her “immersion program” experience was convincing her mother to eat more healthily as well.

That’s music to Friedland’s ears. Lots of companies may offer wellness programs, but so far, Whole Foods is the only one he knows that offers a free healthy eating program experience.

“How can we communicate to folks a place that’s a model of health if we don’t provide opportunities for health with our team member base?” Friedland asked rhetorically. “This is giving our team members every and all opportunities to make impacts in their lives.”

Beth Potter can be reached at 303-630-1944 or via email at bpotter@bcbr.com.

on Facebook on LinkedIn