Work Article

The pictures that are in my last post were also used in an article about me that appeared on my agency intranet site.

Here is the article:

2009 is going to be a great year for Charles Harper. He begins the year fit, healthy, and confident that he has learned the secret to controlling his weight.
Since last January, Charles has dropped 128 pounds. At 230 he looks and feels great, but he’s still working on losing a few more pounds. In addition to eating right—lots of brown rice and fresh veggies—he has a regular exercise routine. He works out at the gym three times a week and attends a yoga class two or three times a week.
Charles has dropped up to 80 pounds a couple of times before, but this time losing weight and getting fit was a family adventure that began when his wife, Ann, applied for a Family Wellness Program at the Valley Athletic Club in Tumwater. The club offered families a free membership for a 12-week period if they agreed to work with a trainer three times every week and participate in a nutrition class.
The Harper family—Charles and Ann, their sixteen-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son—was the only family to last longer than 12 weeks; after 50 weeks, they are still in the program. Ann has lost 40 pounds, both teenagers have also lost weight, and life at home is a lot more fun.
So what motivated them? “It was sort of the team aspect of it, and there was a healthy competition to it, too,” Charles said. “Now we’re all on the same page. We do so much more as a family now. We work out as a family—everybody gets a lot more exercise and the general level of happiness in the house is much higher.”
Charles and Ann also go to yoga class together. Charles admitted that he wasn’t sure that yoga was for him. “In this country about 80 percent of yoga practitioners are women, so I was not eager at first,” he said. “In India all the teachers are men---it’s basically the opposite.”
Now Charles is so sold on the benefits of yoga that he’s thinking of becoming a certified instructor. “It improves your flexibility and balance and reduces stress. I’ve been encouraging my mom and dad to do it. When you’re done you feel very tall, limber, and floaty…it’s just a great thing.”
Charles also learned to love tofu. “We eat things like brown rice, low-fat turkey, quinoa, chicken, and tofu,” he said. “I’ve always liked cooking—I used to make breads. I’ve done a lot of exploring—vegetarian and Asian food. We’ve really expanded the range of things we eat. I now cook Thai and Vietnamese food at home, which is what you have to do to control what’s in your food.”
Last summer the Harper family planted a vegetable garden for the first time in years. “We ate salads right out of the garden—swiss chard, kale, arugula, spinach, lettuce. It takes an extremely small space to grow salad greens. We also grew yellow and green squash. Next year I’m going to plant Italian style zucchini,” Charles said.
The Harpers have also changed their dining out habits. “We haven’t been to fast food in 2008—not a single time,” Charles said. “We used to eat out all the time. Now we eat our maybe once a month and we’ve only had pizza three times this year.”
Charles is proud of losing weight and getting fit, but he is even more pleased with the fact that he and Ann are setting a good example for their children and teaching them good health habits. “We’re helping them establish good patterns for their future—their next 60 to 70 years,” Charles said.
Charles credits Ann with getting the family started on the road to good health and Paul Griffith and Jennifer Croley with helping them stay on track. Paul is the trainer who worked with the family and Jennifer is their nutrition instructor. “Paul is a wonderful guy and Jennifer taught us a lot,” Charles said. “Everyone at the Valley is so friendly. It’s such an awesome place. I’ve been to a lot of gyms over the years, and it’s the best.”

It pretty much tells the whole story.