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Nurses Living Fit 5k Run/Walk showcases healthy lifestyle choices

Third annual event raises money to continue nursing research at Inova Loudoun Hospital

Nurses Living Fit research at Inova Loudoun Hospital grew out of an earlier study of childhood obesity, Kids Living Fit, so it was only fitting that Kyle Chang, wearing the yellow T-shirt of the Kids Living Fit Striders led from start to finish in the 3rd annual Nurses Living Fit Run/Walk, May 14 at the National Conference Center in Lansdowne.

Nancy Kiphuth, R.N. at Inova Loudoun Hospital, was the top finishing nurse.

Threatening weather and gloomy forecasts may have limited the number of participants, but nearly 150 nurses, their families, friends and neighbors showed up for the 5k run and walk. Everyone had fun and the day raised several thousand dollars for extending Nurses Living Fit beyond the initial research and for getting the study’s findings out to a wider audience.

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Pana DeGooyer, creator and owner of Good Sports Fitness, developed the exercise protocols of the 2005 Kids Living Fit study. She has extended it to an after school program in several middle schools and her students run together as the Striders. Chang, 14, has been running with Kids Living Fit since 6th grade and said he will continue running at Tuscarora High School next year.

Yoga instructor Amber Brown led the runners through some exercises to get them stretched and warmed up. Former Redskins wide receiver Cliff Russell led warm up and stretching exercises. The Inova Mobile Health Van was at the finish line to offer free blood pressure and glucose screenings and the organizers, led by Cynthia Earley, also one of the Nurses Living Fit investigators, offered fresh fruit and whole grain snacks.

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Inova Loudoun Hospital’s Director of Nursing Research Karen Gabel Speroni, registered nurse and PhD. in health care administration, designed both the childhood obesity and nurse studies. She hopes, she said, to apply the findings of those studies to an on-going Living Fit series at the hospital.

The average age of nurses in the U.S. is close to 50, Speroni said, and many of them are overweight – like 65 percent of their fellow citizens. The study was to answer the question, “If we give these nurses the proper tools and education on healthy life style choices, will it make a significant difference?”

It did. At the end of the 12-week program, the Nurses Living Fit group – 108 in the intervention group, 109 in the contrast group (nurses whose schedule did not allow them to participate) that was measured and weighed but received no interventions – showed a statistically significant reduction in both Body Mass Index and Waist Circumference

“The second major finding” Speroni said, “was that there was a very high ranking of the helpfulness of the program, and about 93 percent of the participants would recommend it to other health care professionals.”

All 217 participants, nurses in seven community and rural hospitals in Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina, were weighed and measured at the start of the study, at 12 weeks, and again at 24 weeks, 12 weeks after the end of the intervention.

The intervention group attended weekly exercise classes, monthly yoga and monthly nutrition education sessions. In addition, they kept daily diaries of number of steps taken (the study provided pedometers), exercise time, yoga time, number of food group servings and fast food meals, ounces of water consumed per day and hours of sleep each night.

The next task, Speroni said, is to get these results out to the health care community, “in such a way that nurse administrators and hospital executives can be motivated to offer a program similar to this, to help nurses become better stewards of their bodies so they can better serve their patients, their communities and their families.”

Back at the 5k, 14-year-old Chang finished in 20 minutes 50 seconds. About five minutes after him, crossing the finish line in 26 minutes 10 seconds, was Dr. Ed James of Ashburn  -- living proof that healthy choices can make a long-term difference.

Two years ago James, a diagnostic radiologist who works from his Ashburn home, was 60 pounds overweight (“obese”), had prediabetes, high LDL (bad cholesterol) and his blood work showed inflammation of his heart.

He was headed for a heart attack, at age 44. And he had watched many members of his extended family suffer and die from what might be called lifestyle diseases – heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer.

James changed his diet and his lifestyle, he said, and over a year and a half he lost 65 pounds. In a mater of months, all those lab tests returned to normal.

He turned away from fatty, salty, sugary foods and meat, he said, and turned to plant based whole foods. He avoided processed foods. He gradually adopted a diet that is about 95 percent vegan – “If I can do anything 95 percent of the time, I’m fine,” he said.

Before his lifestyle conversion, a typical lunch might be fries and a fast food hamburger. Now, it’s vegetarian chili, raisin bran in the morning with no added sugar (and try to find a brand that isn’t coated with high fructose corn syrup), with either soy or skim milk. Fish, usually wild-caught salmon, appears on the dinner table about once a week.

Two years ago, he said, he could not have run a half mile.

James will be speaking at Inova Loudoun Hospital’s Living Fit series May 31 from noon to 1 p.m. on “Decide to Die or Not.” The public is welcome; call Andrea Rose at 703-858-6308 to reserve a spot.

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