Stewart and Bonnie Henry train with Toronto Argonauts’ player, Jeff Johnson, and personal trainer, Fabian Rayne.

Stewart’s dream has always been to be a CFL football player but after suffering from two heart attacks at a young age, he has decided that he needs to take charge and make a change. Along with his wife Bonnie, the couple would love to be able to show others who have had similar serious wakeup calls that it’s not too late to make changes.

First Experiences…

This has been quite an eye-opening journey for us so far. We thought we were in pretty okay shape – Stewart is a stay-at-home dad. He tries to be active playing with the kids – taking them for bike rides, etc.; he plays soccer when his knees allow, coaches an Under-8 soccer team, and also volunteers in our community as a baseball umpire. I work full-time and I have a 2-hour commute in each direction, so I knew that I was getting quite out of shape – my daily exercise consisted of walking the equivalent of about 5 blocks a day. The first week we worked out with personal trainer Fabian Rayne, and Argo Running Back Jeff Johnson was fun but surprisingly exhausting. Then there was the next 3 days of pain and stiffness. Clearly we were not in such “pretty okay” shape after all!

In the ensuing 3 weeks, we’ve met with Fabian weekly for increasingly tough workouts, and we’ve had a program to follow at home on our own. There’s a lot of work with weights, and a lot of cardio work – walking, jogging, whatever we can do. We started a “walk to school” program – our oldest son walks to the high school, and we walk our youngest child to elementary school and back, so that was an easy way to get out and get moving a little and to start to form good habits with the kids. We’re now almost 3 weeks into the program and I’m very pleased that we’re now able to do the circuit training workouts without too much pain afterwards. It had been an embarrassingly long time since we’ve done much of anything in the fitness area and we both found that there have been a lot of changes in the “conventional thinking” since then. Remember “no pain – no gain”? Well, not anymore. Remember “stay away from carbohydrates and anything white (rice, potatoes, bread etc.)”? Not anymore. Remember granola and sunflower seeds as good snack choices? Not so much anymore. This was a larger re-education than we thought it would be.

We also thought that we ate very well, especially after Stewart’s 2 heart attacks; we tried to be very conscious of what we ate and what we fed our children. Then we got the guidelines in the package for the program. Uh oh! So much for cheese, Caesar salads, liver, pepperoni, bacon and popcorn!! In tracking the foods we eat for the program we discovered that we drink much more wine and beer than we had thought, so we’ve made a conscious effort to scale that back and to make sure that we drink as much water as possible every day. We have talked at length with the kids about making healthy choices and taught them that vegetables are not the enemy. In fact, one of their favourite dinner “sides” is broccoli pancakes! We have discovered some wonderful ways to make spinach, brussels sprouts, and squash. We have signed up for the monthly box of “fresh local produce” that our local Lion’s Club puts together. We have also tried not to skip so many meals anymore. Stewart has even started to discuss heart-healthy choices with other shoppers in the grocery store and I’m pretty sure that sales of butter have declined and sales of non-hydrogenated margarine and low-fat cheese have increased in our town because of it.

I had quit smoking before the start of the program, but going through this has made it pretty easy to stick to that decision.

Using the Daily Activity log on the Making the Connection web site has also helped keep us on track. It’s helped us to see the positive pattern and to make sure that we’re working hard. We started out in week 1 (September 10^th) averaging about 51 minutes of exercise per day. Week 2 saw that increase slightly to 53 minutes/day; and then 78 minutes/day last week. Hopefully we can keep this from falling back again!

So, I guess at Week #3 we’re making good progress and we’re seeing a lot of muscle and stamina development, if not a lot of weight loss … yet.

Round 2

It’s now been a month since we started this program and we had our final workout with Jeff Johnson and Fabian Rayne last night… in the cold and the rain and the mud of the Argonaut’s practice field.  It wasn’t a hugely strenuous workout (mainly due to the weather I think), but we ended up soaked and muddy from head to toe – to the point where rolling in the mud and puddles wouldn’t have made a difference.  It was a lot of fun (except for the push-ups in the mud…), and both gentlemen remarked at the huge change in us over the past 4 weeks – both in terms of our “form” (ability to do lunges without falling over, etc) and our stamina.  We compared the end of the 2 workouts as well … the first one (which I think was not as strenuous as last nights’ workout) where we limped off the field and were stiff, sore and achy for 3 days afterwards, to last night where we sauntered off quite happily into the evening.

 

We have both lost some weight – sensibly and slowly, but the progress is there, and we both feel that we’ve achieved a lot of muscle development and started some wonderful habits.  We also had our youngest son with us last night and he was right there with us – running, stretching, doing chin-ups from the centre of the uprights and push-ups in the mud.  He had a great time!!  It was also very fitting that he was with us as it illustrated to me very clearly how much these changes we are making for ourselves are positively affecting our children.  As we eat better, so do they; as we exercise and incorporate fitness into our daily lives, so do they. 

 

When we had our consultation with Rita the dietician, she remarked that teaching and demonstrating these positive habits for our children would inevitably result in them continuing those habits as a matter of course once they are grown and on their own.

 

The dietician consultation also resulted in us fine-tuning our dietary habits a bit more – using different oils for different purposes in our recipes (cold-pressed olive oil in anything that won’t be heated for it’s cancer-preventing properties as well as its cardiovascular benefits, and canola oil for anything that will be heated for its health benefits (here is what Wikipedia had to say about Canola oil:

 

“Canola oil has been claimed to promote good health due to its very low saturated fat and high monounsaturated fat content, and beneficial omega-3 fatty acid profile. The Canola Council of Canada states that it is completely safe and is the “healthiest” of all commonly used cooking oils.[12]It has well established heart health benefits [13] and is recognized by many health professional organizations including the American Dietetics Association, and American Heart Association, among others.[14] Canola oil has been authorized a qualified health claim from the US Food and Drug Administration [15] based on its ability to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to its unsaturated fat content.”

 

So we’re paying more attention to WHICH oils and fats we consume as much as the quantities.  We’ll be eating even more fish and keeping up our habit of having home-made foods as much as possible rather than pre-packaged foods.

 

With only a few days to go before the end of the contest (but definitely NOT the end of our new lifestyle habits), we’re feeling terrific and seeing tangible positive benefits of the program in ourselves and in our children!! 

 

 One last!

 

The formal part of the Making the Connection program is now over, as we had our final meeting with Fabian Rayne this week for our measurements.  Although we had to wait until after Thanksgiving to be measured, we were both very excited to see the significant evidence of all of our hard work over the past 4 weeks.  While I only lost 3 pounds over the course of the contest, I lost nearly 4” off my waist and another 4” off my hips!!  Stewart lost 6 pounds, about 2” off his waist and gained a lot of muscle all over.  We both managed to shed 3% of our body fat, which we both consider to be great progress.

 

 

We’re now finding out how ingrained our new habits have become.  We’re still making sure that we exercise every day, (although not 2 hours/day anymore), we are still walking the kids to school and promoting the virtues of fresh fruit, vegetables and an overall regime of healthy eating.   We have spent a lot of effort to involve our whole family in this program – by talking with the children about healthy eating, by encouraging them to exercise – both with us and on their own, and by teaching them about the benefits they will get by doing these things every single day.  That’s not to say that they can’t have a treat or a burger and fries, but our message to them (and to you!) is that balance is the key.   Make sure that you follow Canada’s Food Guide while still allowing room for indulgences.

 

 

The importance of everything that we learned over the course of the contest was driven home again for me this week as my business partner had an attack of angina over Thanksgiving weekend and spent 4 days in hospital.  You can bet that we’ll be discussing the benefits of healthy eating and exercise when he is back in the office again!

 

 

That, for us has been the whole key to this experience – it can happen to anyone at any time, and it will happen when you are the least prepared for it. Whether or not you are in a high risk category, paying attention to your health, to your nutrition and to creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle will always pay off – for you and for your family.  The sad thing is that many people focus on their working life and how important it is to make enough money to pay the bills, but not enough people really recognize that if something happens to them, their “in tray” can and will be handed off to someone else to look after, but there is nobody else waiting in the wings to look after your family.  Taking care of your health has to be paramount and having a balanced lifestyle is the key.

 

 

Lastly, I want to congratulate the other seven couples and to thank the sponsors, organizers and promoters of the contest.  I know that everyone worked very hard and we have all seen some very tangible and exciting results.  I’ve very much enjoyed reading about the efforts of all the participants during the contest.  I truly feel as if we have all won – we may not all be at the Grey Cup in person, but every last one of us is better off for having participated.

 

Thank you and good luck to all in continuing with our new healthy lifestyles!!