THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507110457
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: FITNESS QUEST
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star asked for volunteers to join a
six-month weight-loss and fitness program.
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 335 lines
DAWNE BROOKS. Carolyn Sawyer. Reggie Towns. George Bergmann. They might just be four of the bravest people in Hampton Roads. Willing to not only admit they're overweight and out of shape, but also willing to commit to do something about it.
And to let 250,000 people watch.
Succeed or fail, we're committed to tracking their progress during the next six months here in the pages of The Virginian Pilot.
To ensure some level of scientific validity, we asked Drs. David P. Swain and Melvin H. Williams of Old Dominion University's Health and Physical Education Department to assist us. They agreed to test our participants and evaluate their fitness levels through ODU's Wellness Institute, which Swain directs.
To begin, we needed benchmark standards. Participants completed 16-page questionnaires about everything from their eating habits to their stress levels. The resulting computer analysis would pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses in their lifestyles.
Then they met at ODU for a one-hour physical evaluation to test their flexibility, strength and aerobic capacity.
A few days later, they returned for results and recommendations.
No one was surprised by the conclusions: They all need to lose weight, increase their exercise levels and reduce the fat in their diet. And, in the case of one of our participants, quit smoking and cut back on drinking.
But the recommendations were more surprising. Instead of suggesting they start a diet, Williams and Swain urged the four not to diet. All they need to do, the two exercise experts counseled, is slash the fat in their diets to less than 20 percent of their total calories; begin a regular exercise regimen, gradually working up to one hour a day, seven days a week; and try not to lose more than one or two pounds a week.
Our participants think they can do it. They're motivated. And they should be - a lot of people will be watching!
DAWNE BROOKS
Dawne Brooks was desperate to be chosen for this story. She called twice and a friend called once. ``I want to be slim, trim, firm, solid and fit,'' she pleaded. ``I need your program to help and inspire me and keep me motivated. Help! I'm drowning in a sea of fat!''
She wasn't exaggerating. Brooks, 46, has been battling a weight problem most of her life. At 5 feet 3 inches and 263 pounds, she is, in the words of her doctor, ``morbidly obese.''
She's not ashamed of it. The Norfolk woman, who works as a realty specialist for the Navy and who also runs her own motivational speaking company, knows she has a problem.
It's even affecting her business.
``I find that a lot of people look at me and wonder what I have to say of any value to them if I can't do something about my personal physique,'' she said. ``So some of my credibility goes down the tubes.''
She's tried everything. Weight Watchers. Overeaters Anonymous. Nutri-System. She's been hospitalized and put on a protein-only, near-starvation diet. Over the years, she figures she's lost 2,000 pounds. ``And gained back another 2,500,'' she said with a laugh.
Her idea of exercise is sitting in front of the computer. She's tried aerobic classes, but all that Spandex was intimidating. ``They're not designed for heavy people,'' she says.
And her eating habits, she admits, are terrible. Because she's on the go all day, she's used to grabbing some high-fat fast food as she drives from appointment to appointment. She hates most vegetables. And she's too busy to cook or, she thinks, to exercise.
So nothing on her fitness evaluation was a surprise. ``I'm a pragmatist,'' she said after she received the results of her fitness tests. ``I know exactly what condition I'm in. I only have to look in a mirror to see.''
To motivate herself, Brooks signed up for a ``morphing,'' session, in which her computerized image was electronically altered to depict her body 130 pounds slimmer.
As Vikki Marr, who owns Vikki's Styles on Video, tapped some numbers into the computer and hit the enter key, Brooks watched in amazement as her pear-shaped body, dressed in a black one-piece unitard, magically altered to include a waistline and slim hips.
``I wish it were as simple as that,'' Brooks said, staring at her image on the computer screen.
But she knows it isn't. And she knows that even if she follows Swain's recommendations, she still won't look like that computer image at the end of six months.
That's OK, she says. Nothing else has worked. She might as well try this.
CAROLYN F. SAWYER
Carolyn Sawyer is representative of many of the people who called when we asked for volunteers for this project. She's the mother of three young children who hasn't been able to lose her pregnancy weight and who has no time to exercise. She's home all day with the kids. Consequently, she snacks constantly. Instead of fixing herself a nutritious lunch, she picks at the kids' meals, gobbling a slice of bread as she makes peanut-butter sandwiches, or cutting a thick slice of cake for a late-afternoon pick-me-up.
``I need to get fit before it gets any harder to lose the weight,'' the 29-year-old Virginia Beach woman told us when she called. ``A lot of times it takes some encouragement to make the time to exercise and eat correctly. This would be very good incentive to stay on track.''
At 5 feet 7 1/2 inches and 190 pounds, Sawyer knows what her problem is - she is a sugar addict who can't find the time to exercise. Last year, she lost 18 pounds through diet and exercise, but the weight didn't stay off.
That's probably because her dietary changes didn't include things she could do long-term, Swain says. For instance, if she weighed her portions, carefully counted calories and denied herself any kind of ``sinful'' food, it's no surprise she eventually slipped. People just can't continue that kind of rigid diet surveillance forever, he said.
He advocates introducing changes that people can continue throughout their life - reaching for no-fat frozen yogurt instead of ice cream; for a bag of pretzels instead of potato chips; for half a bagel with low-fat cream cheese instead of a fruit danish.
Sawyer also needs to make exercise a regular part of her life, Swain said, not just something she does until the weight comes off.
Just two days after her fitness test, Sawyer was already taking the advice to heart. She'd joined the recreation center in Virginia Beach, which offered free baby-sitting and aerobic classes, and arranged with a neighbor to trade off baby-sitting so they could each attend other exercise classes.
But she knows it's going to be hard to keep motivated. If she has a half hour, she says, she'd rather sit down and play the piano - not take a walk.
So what makes her think this is going to be different?
``This will make me do things,'' she says with certainty.
REGINALD TOWNS
Reggie Towns can't help but shake his head at the irony as he walks into the fitness room at ODU. ``I used to do this for other people,'' he says.
Indeed.
For years, the last thing Towns, 33, of Norfolk, needed to worry about was fitness. A track star in high school and college, he qualified for the 1980 Olympic track team but couldn't participate because of the United States' boycott that year.
After college, he went to work as a physical education teacher, later as a physical education director at a YMCA in North Carolina. He taught aerobics, worked out in the weight room and ran nearly every day.
Then he got married, became director of that YMCA, and the decline began.
Today, he is director of the Hunton YMCA in Norfolk. Although he is surrounded by exercise machines and weights, he doesn't work out. Doesn't run. And his stress level is nearly off the charts.
He regularly works more than 50 hours a week, gets less than six hours of sleep a night, and has a diet even he admits is ``quite poor and in great need of improvement.''
Small wonder, then, that he has frequent headaches and backaches.
But . . . he was the only one of our participants who could do sit-ups for a full minute. He finished the one-mile walk well ahead of the rest. And although you can tell that some of the muscle on his large frame has softened, you can also see the powerful athlete he once was.
But at 6 feet and 251 1/2 pounds, he's fighting the same nemesis as our other participants. He's gained 40 pounds in the past two years.
He's worried about how he'll change his eating habits. ``I like to taste my food,'' he says, which in his mind means heavy, fatty foods. And he often goes all day without eating - like the day he showed up for the fitness test. Then, he didn't eat anything until 9:30 p.m.
But he thinks it's possible, especially the part about the exercise.
After all, he says with a wry grin, ``I used to say the same things to other people that you've just said to me.''
GEORGE BERGMANN
George Bergmann loves to talk. About anything to anyone. Could be because he's lonely. And that, he thinks, is part of the reason he doesn't exercise anymore.
The 68-year-old retired Navy man lives alone in Virginia Beach. He used to be in great shape, he says, especially when he was in the Navy and later when he worked as an iron maker. ``It's never too late to take care of yourself,'' he said when he first called asking to be included in this project. His problem isn't time. He belongs to a spa in Virginia Beach and while he goes occasionally, there's no one waiting at home to motivate him.
``Then I look in the mirror and say, `Oh, my god! There I go again!' Someone has to push me a little bit or give me a purpose besides myself.''
These newspaper articles, says the 5-foot-8, 188 1/4-pound Bergmann, would do that.
But Bergmann has other fitness problems as well. He smokes about one or two unfiltered Camel cigarettes and drinks about 14 alcoholic beverages a week. And he has problems coping with the stress in his life.
A big part of the problem, he admits, is that he's bored. After working hard all his life - usually at physically intense jobs - he just can't adjust to sitting around the house all day. When he applies for a job, people tell him he's too old, or that he doesn't have the stamina.
So he's decided to make fitness his new job. He's planning to go to the spa three or four times a week to swim and walk the treadmill. He has a stair-step machine at home that he uses while watching TV. And he's going to try to improve his eating habits - which include a lot of meat and potatoes and butter.
He's particularly excited that Swain and Williams didn't recommend a hard-core diet. ``I always get screwed up with diets,'' he said.
He's already implemented one change Williams suggested. Instead of slathering bread with his beloved butter, he's started on spritzing Pam vegetable spray. ``And you know,'' he says, ``it's not bad.'' ILLUSTRATION: TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff color photos
GEORGE BERGMANN
Smoking and drinking have contributed to his fitness problems.
DAWNE BROOKS
She's battled a weight problem most of her life. Now it's affecting
her business.
CAROLYN SAWYER
The mother of three young children hasn't been able to lose her
pregnancy weight and has not time to exercise.
REGGIE TOWNS
The former track star qualified for the 1980 Olympics and taught
physical education, but that was then. His current job has meant
long hours, little sleep, high stress - and ballooning weight.
Photos
At Vikki's Styles on Video, Dawne Brooks got a computerized picture
of what she might look like if she lost 130 pounds.
Graphics
ON YOUR MARK...
Here are the starting statistics for our four Fitness Quest
participants. Recommended fitness score is 60 or above.
Dawne Brooks
Age: 46
Weight: 263 lbs.
Height: 63 1/2 inches
Waist: 45 inches
Hips: 57 1/4 inches
Body fat: More than 44 percent
Flexibility: 16 1/2 inches
Situps in 1 minute: 9
Push-ups: none
One-mile walk time: 20 minutes and 30 seconds
Heart rate (after walk) 136 beats per minute
Overall fitness score: 13
Specific recommendations:
Start every day with a nutritional breakfast
Increase vitamin A and C foods, including citrus, tomatoes, fresh
foods, and dark yellow or green vegetables.
Reduce fat intake to less than 30 percent of calories
Reduce saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods
Increase complex carbohydrates to more than 55 percent of
calories eaten
Reduce sugar to less than 10 teaspoons per day
Begin a regular, aerobic exercise program, 20-60 minutes three
times a week.
Achieve and maintain a body fat ratio of 21-25 percent
Carolyn Sawyer
Age: 29
Weight: 190 pounds
Height: 67 1/2
Waist: 35 inches
Hips: 47 1/4 inches
Body fat: more than 44 percent
Flexibility: 18.7 inches
Situps in one minute: 11
Pushups: 6
One-mile walk time: 15 minutes, 47 seconds
Heart rate (after walk) 162 beats per minute
Total fitness score: 15
Specific recommendations:
Eat more cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, brussels sprouts,
cabbages, etc. Avoid salt-cured, smoked and nitrate-cured foods.
Reduce fat intake to less than 30 percent of calories
Achieve a body fat ratio of 18-22 percent
Begin regular, aerobic exercise, 20-60 minutes at least three
times a week
Reduce intake of sugar-rich and refined foods
Increase vitamin A and C foods, including citrus, tomatoes, fresh
foods, and dark yellow or green vegetables.
Reggie Towns
Age: 33
Weight: 251 1/2 pounds
Height: 72 inches
Waist: 42 inches
Hips: 46 1/4 inches
Body fat: 23 percent
Flexibility: 17 1/2 inches
Sit-ups (one minute): 42
Push-ups: 30
One-mile walk time: 15 minutes, 15 seconds
Heart rate (after walk): 124 beats per minute
Overall fitness score: 32
Specific recommendations:
Start every day with a nutritional breakfast
Increase vitamin A and C foods such as citrus, tomatoes, fresh
foods, dark yellow or green vegetables.
Reduce fat intake to less than 30 percent of calories eaten.
Reduce intake of saturated fats to less than 10 percent of
calories.
Reduce cholesterol-rich foods
Increase intake of complex carbohydrates to more than 55 percent
of calories.
Reduce sugar intake to less than 10 teaspoons per day.
Begin a regular, aerobic exercise, 20-60 minutes at least three
times a week.
Achieve and maintain a body fat ratio of 12-16 percent.
Decrease stress load and improve coping skills.
George Bergmann
Age: 68
Weight: 188 1/4 pounds
Height: 68 1/4 inches
Waist: 41 1/2 inches
Hips: 40 5/8 inches
Body fat: 31 percent
Flexibility: 15 1/2 inches
Sit-ups (one minute): 16
Push-ups: none
One-mile walk time: 16 minutes and 56 seconds
Heart rate (after walk): 120 beats per minute.
Overall fitness score: 52
Specific recommendations:
Start every day with a nutritional breakfast
Increase intake of vitamin A-rich foods - dark yellow or green
vegetables
Reduce fat intake to less than 30 percent of calories
Reduce intake of saturated (animal or solid fats) to less than 10
percent of calories
Reduce cholesterol-rich foods
Increase intake of complex carbohydrates to more than 55 percent
of calories eaten
Reduce sugar intake to less than 10 teaspoons a day.
Reduce intake of refined foods, sugar, fats, desserts, alcohol.
Adjust caloric intake or energy output to achieve recommended
weight.
Reduce stress level in life and improve coping skills.
Follow a regular, aerobic exercise program, 20-60 minutes three
times a week.
Reduce or eliminate drinking to reduce or eliminate risk of
cirrhosis and heart disease.
ODU'S WELLNESS INSTITUTE
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB