One of the most potentially frustrating paths on the often-pothole laden road to health is a lack of instantaneous results.  We live in a culture of the immediate, and, when day one of a new fitness routine, better eating, or cigarette free doesn’t spontaneously turn us into Micheal Phelps, it’s very tempting to do the one thing that is easy:  quit.  (Confidential to smokers:  the first day of quitting is the worst.  Stick it out and I promise, as a reformed smoker, the following thousands of days are so worth it.)

And there is scores of new evidence why diets don’t work.  Apparently, when we’re hungry, our brains literally start eating themselves.  No joke:  we self-cannibalize.  Gruesome, dude.  For the full, and just a bit more scientific explanation than mine, click here.

A study published Tuesday in the online version of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine dropped the bombshell that fad diets don’t work.  What is an effective method for weight loss?  Good old-fashioned diet and exercise.

Not that kind of old-fashioned.

So, in our modern world of the now, where do significant changes fit in?   We’d like to offer some friendly advice, and suggest, yup, you guessed it, baby steps.  Add a vegetable- Or try a new vegetable.  (Ever tried Romanesco?  It’s healthy, tasty, and it looks so punk rock, if you’re into that.)  Or try a new physical activity.  The humble author of this oh-so-illuminating post tried Anti-Gravity Yoga last week.  And didn’t even fall on her head!

Spending one day a week walking on your lunch break, or swapping your traditional chips out for rice crackers, or switching to water instead of soda:  these are classic baby steps.  Easy to do, and they pave the way to bigger and better strides towards health in the future.

We recently asked folks over at our LinkedIn page to take a poll responding to the question, “What are the top 5 mistakes you see clients making when implementing their productivity health management (aka wellness) programs?  We gave them the following 5 options to choose from:

• No measures or data collection
• Lack of focus when implementing
• Poorly thought out/faddish programming
• Lack of engagement/participation
• Efforts don’t actually change behavior

(To actually vote, please visit our LinkedIn page.)

All of the responses we received were great, but Kathy Cash had such a fantastic, articulated response we thought we’d share it here, too.  Thanks, Kathy, for your candor and insights.

“Many years ago, I used to be an inspector for the Air Force’s wellness programs and later an HMO overseeing DOD prevention programs. I consistently I saw some combination of the following issues in programs that did not meet our standards:

1. Lack of a formal strategic plan, which leads to problems such as a lack of focus, wasted resources, and poor outcomes.
2. Not being customer driven, which leads to problems such as not incorporating customers wants/expectations into the program.
3. Lack of employee engagement, which leads to poor / lackluster participation and over-dependence on incentives (or misuse of incentives).
4. Not positioning the wellness program as integral to company success which includes not linking program to mission, not addressing issues within the environment and social / work culture.
5. Not tying the program to health care management
6. Lack of partnering or ineffective partnering… both internally and externally.
7. Poor management support at all levels, including poor demonstrations of support… even if it does exist
8. Background / Credentials and personality of personnel running the program, which includes not keeping up-to-date on new research/innovations/intervention techniques, trying (or being forced) to be an expert in all aspects of health/wellness, and trying to do it all.

Evaluations are important...when done correctly.

If you are going to expand on this dialogue, let me contribute some more food-for-thought based on a recent interview I did with Larry Chapman (www.lchapman@chapmaninstitute.net) for an article on the subject that will soon appear in the Health Promotion Practitioner magazine:

Mistake #1: Not Conducting an Annual Program Evaluation

According to Larry, most companies do an initial evaluation on new programs, but they rarely repeat the process.

Mistake #2: Not Defining/Identifying Economic Variables

This mistake revolves around not identifying variables influenced by the wellness program, which could be used strategically to improve the organization’s economic picture. These variables include costs related to:

1. Health plans
2. Sick leave absenteeism
3. Workers compensation
4. Short- and long-term disability
5. Presenteeism.

Mistake #3: Not Including Medical Self Care, Injury Prevention, and Consumer Health Education in Programming

All programs emphasize health risk reduction, but not enough attention is paid to building consumer skills and self-efficacy or how to deal appropriately with common medical symptoms.

Mistake #4: Not Making Strong Linkages to Health Benefits

Larry believes many organizations fail to provide an incentive large enough to create sufficient motivation to engage the majority of people in the wellness program.

Mistake #5: Not Building a Reusable and Resilient Program Infrastructure

Larry believes wellness professionals fail to fully use the information their programs generate, nor do they build a reusable data infrastructure when programming, but rather see each component as stand-alone pieces.

Mistake #6: Not Maintaining Consistent, Organized Communication with Key Stakeholders

Larry feels most wellness managers don’t approach communication with key stakeholders in a systematic way.

Mistake #7: Not Enough Customer Focus

Too many wellness professionals assume they know what their customers need and want from the program.

Mistake #8: Not Planning Ahead for an “Endgame”

Instead of basing their program planning on project periods spanning 3-5 years, Larry says many larger companies constantly face an annual program planning dilemma, only making program changes in order to achieve some established for the upcoming year.

Mistake #9: Not Being Able to Intelligently Influence Health Plan Design

According to Larry, many wellness professionals are uncomfortable talking to benefits staff about how health plans could support wellness, thus limiting their ability to partner with benefits departments in planning and designing the health plan.

Mistake #10: Not Recognizing and Being Skilled at Organizational Politics

Every wellness professional is confronted with organizational politics at some level, yet Larry rarely sees them dedicate time to thinking about and acquiring the skills to master this area.”

Happy Holidays! Since the New Year is just around the corner, we thought we’d make our party even MORE interesting (I KNOW! How is that even possible?) with the addition of a little friendly competition.

But first, Auld Lang Syne on the accordion:

So here is our challenge to you. Share with us: your worst New Year’s Resolution, fad diet, or other health attempts gone awry, and we’ll share your story at our Blue Monday event.  The funniest story wins the author a bottle of Oregon wine!

Maybe a little sadly for everyone else, our first entrant was Heather Arndt Anderson, who is no neophyte when it comes to putting her thoughts to paper (errrrr….keyboard). She was actually at a writers’ group when she first heard about our challenge. Here is her tale of a diet that, in hindsight, might not have been the healthiest way to lose weight.

The most effective diet I’ve ever been on is the I Got Dumped Diet. Lost 30 pounds in a month! Here’s how you can slim down on the IGD Diet in 10 easy steps:

1) Get cheated on and unceremoniously dumped by your fiance of four years.

2) Do not throw all of his shit into the street and walk away from the dodged bullet like a proud, strong woman — that is too easy and will only prolong the weight loss process. Rather,

3) Get a ridiculous hair cut. This will result in an immediate loss of at least a couple of ounces of unwanted weight.

4) Smoke 50 cigarettes in one day.

5) On Day 4, begin to eat a bowl of ramen (your first food all week) but after the first bite, disintegrate into a pile of tears. Crying is the direct shedding of bloat-causing salt and water, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly the weight just drops off!

6) Curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth on the floor while listening to Carol King’s “It’s Too Late.” Smoke 20 more cigarettes.

7) By now you should already be down a whopping 5-10 pounds. Keep up the good work! To celebrate, sit in front of your computer hitting the Refresh button on your browser to see if he’s responded to that email you sent at 3:45am. Clicking the mouse burns calories!

8 ) Agree to meet your ex at the neighborhood bar and when he tells you he just set up a personals ad, drink at least six vodka cocktails. You’ve earned them.

9) Stalk him online for two weeks instead of eating. Respond to an “I Saw You” that someone posted for him with an email, subject line “Back Off, Bitch – I Wear Brass Knuckles.”

10) Congratulations! After only a few short weeks you’re finally a size 4. Wasn’t that easy?

If you think you have a weird diet story, a broken or hilarious resolution, or any other health attempt gone off the rails (the torn groin you got in that crazy hot yoga class?) then share it with us on:

Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

Or as a comment on this blog or our YouTube video!

So many options.  Post your anecdote on any of these before January 21st, 2012 and the best story wins a bottle of Oregon wine.