Posts Tagged ‘Running Wolf Fitness Center’
A-Pod CHAT: Advancing Opportunities through a Partnership of Diabetics
When A Partnership Of Diabetics (A-POD) was first designed and implemented, our goal was simply to create a community-based program for advancing the skills of persons with diabetes to become better self-managers of their condition. We started with POD-Tensives, a daylong workshop to introduce our strategies to participants and then sponsored weekly Meet-ups where participants could share the “mile-markers” on their journey toward better health and wellness. Meet-ups became and still are the key ingredient in A-POD”'s program because it”'s the time that participants can actually share their progress or problems with others with similar challenges. Meet-ups are more than a “support group” because we also track participant”'s numbers to demonstrate that with the additional focus on diabetes and learning new and better tools to manage our conditions, we improve! In a third party evaluation conducted by a graduate student from the University of [...]
“Exercise and Excuse looked too much alike for too long.”
My Running Wolf Story by Jeane Moore My name is Jeane and I hate to exercise. I am 71 years old and overweight and diabetic. Being a diabetic, of course, puts me at a higher risk for kidney and cardiovascular problems. My mother and father both died of heart-related disease. So did one of my grandmothers and one of my grandfathers. But I let myself get to the age of being an elder without learning how to take care of myself, even with all those object lessons. Well, I knew how in my head but not my gut. Then a series of good-luck events happened to me. First, I ran into a neighbor, Jake, at a meeting and saw him without a coat on for the first time in months and he”'d shrunk! By half! He had lost 100 pounds. He gave me a ride home and I said what did you do and he explained his diet to me (he eats less -- who knew? But he had some very useful information on how to accomplish that) and mentioned his support group. I asked, [...]
This Country seriously needs several thousand more ”˜Running Wolves”'
By Jake Shortly after Running Wolf Fitness Center opened last fall in the Phillips Community Center, I and my neighbor joined. I'd never exercised in a gym, and I'm pushing 70 years. My neighbor's about my age. We found Running Wolf through our diabetes support group, A-POD (A Partnership of Diabetics). A-POD moved into rooms in the same newly reopened Phillips Community Center. In my prime, I was a pretty good walker, and I swam in lakes in the summers and irregularly swam laps in a club in the winters. Just the same, I developed longstanding ankle issues and let myself get too big. In 2009, five years into my retirement, I ran into my own personal buzzsaw: a torn hamstring from doing the splits on sidewalk ice, renewed ankle pain on both sides from favoring the hamstring and in August of that year, a diagnosis of Type Two diabetes with peripheral neuropathy of the feet, which makes me slightly balance-impaired. Over 20 months, starting in January of 2009, I lost 100 [...]
