Meeting the Challenge
How these local women joined a national movement to take control of their health—and found ways to reclaim themselves along the way
By Sarah DeRoo
Photographed by Amber Arnold with additional photography by David King
What little girl sits at home and thinks, ‘I want to grow up to be overstressed, chubby and have high cholesterol?’” Leigh-Anne Lottridge asks quietly.
“No one!” she says, answering her own question before bursting into laughter.
This was something she’d been thinking about a lot lately, she admits. It had been several months since she’d received some unpleasant health news; she had high cholesterol, and medication was going to be required to control it. A registered nurse who spends her days focused on the health of others, Lottridge found herself sorting through exactly how, at 35, she had gotten here.
“I started looking back, saying, ‘What have I done?’” she says. “And I realized I haven’t done anything for myself. I mean, literally nothing.”
So, Lottridge was here. But she wasn’t alone.
At 42, Meg Zopelis found herself in a similar place. A bubbly and warm mother of two, she felt stuck. “For the last 11 years I’ve focused all my time on my kids,” she says. And at 52, Pat Swartout was coming to new realizations about her life now that her two kids were out of the house. “[Since they’ve been gone] I kind of stopped taking care of myself,” she says. “It was like I took a little vacation.”
These three women—strangers to one another—were echoing the same sentiment: At some point it just got away from them.
While going through the motions of everyday life—building careers or building families, making plans or taking on challenges, catching up on favorite TV shows or catching up on sleep—they had sacrificed time for the things that had once been so important: time to cook, time to exercise, essentially, time for themselves. They could see the effects on their waistlines, their energy levels and even their confidence. At some point, they each knew, they would see it in their health.
Their question was, how could they get it back? The opportunity came in the form of a challenge to transform their health in the most fundamental way.
They had, along with dozens of area women, applied as teams for the chance to be a part of the 2011 Go Red For Women Girlfriends Challenge. A collaboration between the American Heart Association-Madison and UW Health, the challenge is a 12-week program of Go Red For Women, AHA’s nationwide initiative to equip women of all ages with the tools to fight back against their No. 1 killer: cardiovascular disease.
Four teams were chosen to participate. Ranging in age from 23 to 60, bringing with them varying backgrounds and experiences, these 13 women came together expecting to learn better ways to care for their hearts—hoping to lose a few pounds, find new exercise routines and healthy recipes along the way. But what they got was something more. It was an opportunity to see themselves—and their health—in a whole new light.
It was January 4. While the rest of the UW Health Administrative Services Building was dark and empty for the evening, happy chatter echoed down a first-floor hallway. Inside a bright meeting room, the four teams had gathered to kick off their 12-week challenge.
Roaming around an expanse of tables, they made quick, informal introductions before getting seated to begin an overview of what was planned for them during the next three months.
They were in for a makeover of sorts, only this makeover was about changing from the inside out.
“It’s a new year, and what a privilege we have,” announced Clinical Exercise Physiologist Vonda Shaw, the UW Health Preventive Cardiology Program manager and one of the experts who would be guiding the teams through the program. Then she reiterated their primary goal.
“We want to make an impact before you have a heart event, before you have to come through our doors,” she said. The reality is that 80 percent of women’s cardiac events are preventable through the kinds of lifestyle changes they’d be putting into practice.
But, as the 13 women made formal introductions and shared their goals along with their stories, it became instantly clear that from day one this wasn’t just about health, it was about the future.
For some, like Melissa Mael and Deb Schroeder, the motivation came from wanting to be better to themselves, and set good examples for their young children. For Jennifer Stephens, Elishah Oesch, Jamie Hersch and Diana Henry, the inspiration came from knowing that now was the time to build healthy habits for the future. Swartout was honest in admitting she needed help battling an addiction to cigarettes. And for others, like Zopelis and Barb Meister, the motivators were multiple: Both wanted to take care of themselves, but they were also battling scary family histories of heart problems. Zopelis was only 21 when her mom, at 46, suddenly died of heart disease. And Meister’s dad had his first heart attack at 43.
“I’m 43 right now,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He died when he was 54. I don’t want that to be me.”
In some ways the program was already working. The women were revealing their struggles and their fears. For many, just saying them out loud was a turning point.
As Shaw noted, the first step to getting control of their health was accomplished: They were here. And after giving themselves a round of applause and high-fives, the plan for the road ahead was unveiled.
The basic formula for the challenge was simple. Following recommendations the AHA advocates as healthy practices for all women, UW Health experts would guide the teams in understanding their personal risk factors and the current status of their heart health, as well as in implementing lessons in goal-setting, nutrition, exercise and stress reduction into their daily lives.
“Looking at the schedule [they had planned for us], I was in awe,” says Meister. “Seeing all the different people we were going to meet, and what we were going to learn... The benefits I was going to reap from this [were priceless].”
The guidelines were anything but the regimented diet and exercise plans that are so often associated with healthy living. Instead, the Go Red program laid out a plan to help the women make the kind of small changes in their daily lives that would have a big impact.
It’s no surprise, then, that the first step is to create realistic goals. Schroeder explains that the idea was to focus on what you could control.
“You can control how much food you put on your plate, how much you walk or how many vegetables you buy,” she says. “Make [your goal] something realistic and something you’re 90 percent sure you can do.”
For exercise? “Thirty minutes of exercise a day, five days a week,” Meister reports. A recommendation that can sound overwhelming was easily implemented when each challenger was handed a pedometer to track the amount of steps she would take from the moment she wakes up to when her head hits the pillow at night.
“If you can get in 10,000 steps a day, that equals a 30-minute workout,” Rhoda Grosenick explains.
Breaking big changes down into simple tips was the same goal for nutrition.
“People always think that in order to do something healthy with your heart, you have to deprive yourself,” Kaysi McGhie says. “It’s more about being conscious of what you’re eating.”
Most of these lessons came back to a technique called mindfulness—a new addition to this year’s challenge which offered the women techniques to de-stress and find more awareness in their choices.
“[It’s] about staying in the present moment, and grounding yourself,” Schroeder explains. “[We] keep moving in life, we don’t stop, we’re constantly running. And that leads to bad health, because you don’t pay attention to what you’re eating, what you’re doing.”
Simply learning how to make these little adjustments to their lifestyles was the easy part. But actually keeping up with the changes? Well, that’s why it’s called a challenge.
On that first night back in January, in the midst of all the excitement and anticipation, there was something the challengers had not yet discovered: While they spent each week learning new lessons and striving to be better to themselves, life wasn’t going to stop. Kids would still need help with homework, eight-hour workdays would still stretch into 12, and the dishes would still be in the sink, waiting for someone to clean them.
“It’s so hard to say, ‘I need to put in the time to be better with myself and exercise,’ when that pile of laundry over there isn’t getting folded,” says Henry. “And [if you do take the time for yourself] you still have to fold the laundry when you’re done!”
Inevitably there were days where they faltered, where stress got the best of them and their diet plans and exercise goals got set aside, again.
But this time, when those setbacks occurred, they approached them with a different outlook. In the past, when bad decisions were made (French fries!) or frustrations hit (the scale didn’t move…again?!) they had focused on what they couldn’t do—they couldn’t stop themselves from overeating, they couldn’t lose weight.
There was, however, a change they could make to help them push aside their frustrations and move forward. As the different aspects of the program—from goal setting to mindfulness—helped them understand,they just needed to focus on the things they could do.
They could make it easier on themselves by breaking their goals down into smaller steps.
“It’s giving yourself a break,” says McGhie. “I think that’s what goal-setting does. It says, don’t focus too much on six months down the line. Take it one day at a time.”
“Every choice doesn’t have to be perfect,” Henry adds. “I had some Peanut M&M’s yesterday. It’s OK to do that. Just don’t do it every hour. You have to let yourself have those little things.”
When they did feel like they had faltered, they could take it easy on themselves by changing their mindset.
“That negative self-talk we [women] do, it’s so bad!” Olmsted adds. It was a struggle that Schroeder was familiar with, too.
“One thing that helped me stop being so hard on myself…I ask, ‘Would I ever talk to my daughter like that?’” Schroeder says.
“Would I ever say to my daughter, ‘You’re so stupid, you’re so fat’? No, never! Someone you love, you don’t treat like that. I need to do that for myself.”
And then when they did have those inevitable bad days? They could accept it—without losing sight of their goals.
“You’re not proud to say, ‘Oh I’ve really been flubbing it right now,’” Zopelis says. “But have acceptance that you’ll slip up along the way. That’s what I keep working on: Move past it. Have a little compassion for yourself.”
What each woman found she could do was pretty much endless.
They could celebrate their little victories—the vegetables they ate for a snack, the stairs they climbed at work. They could find ways to walk more, every day, without heading to the gym. And they could be more successful than they had ever been in the past.
This new way of thinking about themselves and their lives lifted a weight off their shoulders. The challenge wasn’t just about changing their actions, it was about changing their perceptions of themselves and their abilities.
And as they neared the finish line of the program, this was the lesson they resolved to carry with them.
“I can see myself on the right path now,” Swartout says.
“We’re not going to be pros at it by the end of this,” Meister adds. “But [we’ve been given] all the information we need to succeed. It’s going to be a continuing journey. I’m going to continue on and get better at it.”
It was March 22. In a party room at The Vintage Bar & Grill, cheerful flowers adorned a circle of tables where the challengers would soon sit to mark the end of their journey through the program.
The women rushed in from work, greeting each other like old friends before getting seated to celebrate all they had accomplished in such a short time.
The women were walking a little taller, smiling a bit bigger. But the real change couldn’t be seen, it could be heard, Shaw said. Instead of hearing from each challenger “I wish I could,” they were saying, “Now I know I can.”
Shaw shared just a few of the successes—and there were many.
As a group, the teams had dropped 116 points off their cholesterol and lost over 26 inches off their waistlines. Challengers Jennifer Stephens, Olmsted and Grosenick had collectively walked 834 miles with their pedometers in tow. The final results and stories of just how far each woman had come would be saved and unveiled on April 7, at the annual Go Red For Women Luncheon.
There are no words to explain the emotion they felt at having found such simple ways to take back the control they thought they had lost. But they tried.
Standing in front of the group she had come to know so well, Meister explained that the last 12 weeks were about more than just the changes she saw in her health. “I’ve been given a second chance at life,” she added, before stopping to wipe her tears.
And as they took turns sharing their stories once again, this time they all had a different ending. This time, they each knew exactly how they had gotten here.
•••
The Challengers
Meg Zopelis
Fast Facts: 42, mother of two, program assistant for the City of Madison
Lesson: “Accept that you’ll slip up along the way. But don’t sit there and kick yourself. Be conscious of the positive things you can do.”
Deb Schroeder
Lisa Olmsted
Fast Facts: 60, mother of three, secretary in the office of the Mayor
Goal: Improve daily eating habits and incorporate exercise into daily life
Barb Meister
Pat Swartout
Rhoda Grosenick
Lesson: “Surround yourself with a support system, a team.”
Leigh-Anne Lottridge
Lesson: “Until you come to that moment where you decide you want to make yourself better, nothing is going to help.”
Melissa Mael
Jennifer Stephens
Kaysi McGhie
Diana Henry
Elishah Oesch
Jamie Hersch