Program provides first step toward more healthy living
WILTON – An age-old proverb says a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. A new program started by the Healthy Community Coalition is showing that the same can be said about a journey toward health and wellness.
The Strides program got its roots in 1997 when the HCC began offering 10-week programs to give people incentives to exercise by offering prizes for those around Franklin County and Livermore/Livermore Falls who reached their fitness goals.
After surveying participants at a 2002 family fun day for “Stride Into Summer” at Titcomb Mountain, Nate Morse, program associate for HCC and coordinator for the Physical Activities Task Force, heard loud and clear that people wanted a program that would help them stick to their goals year-round.
From this plea, the Strides program was born in all its simplicity. Participants just sign up to receive a monthly calendar with spaces to record their daily activities and their goals. The calendar also includes a health tip of the month and highlights healthy activities going on in the area, such as health fairs or community walks.
Each calendar is sponsored by a local business, which donates prizes or offers discounts for participants. In June, the three people who come closest to achieving the fitness goals they set will win heart-rate monitors.
Participants also get outdoor walking maps for their towns and a list of local indoor walking sites, because walking, Morse said, is the fastest way to better health.
A workout recorded in the daily log can include anything from 20 minutes of vigorous vacuuming to stacking wood or shoveling snow, said Morse. “This program helps remove the barriers to the reasons why they are not exercising. It’s all for fun. It’s simple. You just write down your activities and send it in. It’s just a program to get people active.”
Leah Binder, executive director for the HCC, said the program is successful – it already has more than 100 participants – because it monitors people without policing them.
“It encourages you to make a plan and fit exercise into your life,” Binder said. “It’s like doing a household budget.” If you skip a day, she adds, the blank space on the calendar will “stare you in the face.”
Binder points out that daily exercise is important now more than ever as an “epidemic of obesity” sweeps across the nation. In Maine, she said, 60 to 65 percent of adults are overweight.
As the days get longer and the weather warmer, Morse and Binder say that now is the time to take the first step. “Just take a couple of steps. The payoff is immediate. Your body feels good, your mind feels good. Exercise is not hard work, physical activity is meant to be fun.”
Some recommendations for having fun while getting moderate exercise this summer include mini-golf, swimming, joining a softball team, water-skiing, croquet, Frisbee, dog-walking or canoeing and kayaking. The physical and mental benefits of each activity quickly adds up as the calendar fills, the two say.
“Win some prizes, have some fun, do something with your family and have a little excuse to think about exercise,” said Binder.
For more information about the Strides program, or to sign up, contact Nate Morse at 645-3136 (ext. 5108) or via e-mail at nmorse@fchn.org. More information and walking maps can be found at www.fchn.org/hcc.
sdepoy@sunjournal.com
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