My Plan For Health

If Charlie had five angels: Kristen, Julia, me, Emily, and Ellen. (Photo by Jo McCulty)

…and bikin’, and golfin’, and kickboxin’. And that’s just a small selection of the activities that are going to help me and my teammates rock this year’s Hit the Road with the Buckeyes Challenge.

Team Kinnear (named after the west campus road where University Communications is located) is: Kristen Convery, Web Editor in our New Media unit; Julia Harris, Associate Editor of onCampus; Emily Caldwell, Assistant Director of Research Communications; Ellen Hoover, Web Designer in our New Media unit; and me.

If the crowds of people picking up their free pedometer at the wellness fair were any indication, lots of faculty and staff are taking the challenge!

Our team is off to a bit of an inauspicious start, as one of us immediately lost her pedometer (suprisingly, it wasn’t me), and another pedometer just stopped working. I wore mine to belly dancing class and it whipped right off of me and cracked on the hardwood floor. It stopped working, too, so I just shook it until it started working again. A high-tech solution, eh?

We are not the only ones to have problems, and Human Resources sent out an email to all participants this week apologizing for any defective pedometers and saying that they are working on a solution. We can still keep track of all our steps, however, using the step calculator on the Hit the Road Website. Many different forms of exercise are listed there, along with the number of “steps” that they count towards.

Remember to enter your first week’s steps before midnight tonight, or they won’t count!

The latest edition of Netwell arrived in my mailbox this morning, and… Yes! Registration for Autumn Quarter Lunch & Learn is open. [The new Netwell doesn't appear to be online yet, but when it is, I suspect it will appear here.]

I’m really excited about this quarter, because almost all of the offerings are new. Longtime L&L yoga instructor Marla Musyt is teaching pilates, as well as a class on back strengthening catchily titled “Back at ‘Cha.” (Back at ‘cha, Marla!)

Shelly Denbe, RN, is bringing her “Danskinetics” yoga-dance class to L&L, and I’ve already signed up. Yoga is great, dancing is great –  so the combination must be really great, right?

There are also lunchtime seminars on eating local and eating mindfully, as well as a healthy holiday luncheon at the Faculty Club.

All events are free except the Faculty Club lunch, which costs $11. I am so there.

Yesterday’s Rally for Wellness was chock full of information and — as always — free stuff. My favorite: a manicure kit from the Division of General Obstetrics and Gynecology. [The folks at OBGYN really know what the ladies want, don't they?]

I was glad I stopped by the booth for the University Health Connection, where I learned that this year’s flu season is already underway. It’s more critical than ever that we all get flu shots and get them early.

Swine flu aside — health officials are still working out the availability of that vaccine, and it will go to people such as health care workers and the elderly, who are most in need of it — the regular-old seasonal flu is spreading with the start of the new school year.

Bonny Roberts with Jeff Stephens, executive director of Consider Biking. Jeff gave me a book on "Ohio Bicycling Street Smarts."

Flu shots will be available to OSU faculty and staff starting October 6, and the university recently launched a new Web site to keep everyone up to date on flu happenings.

Next, I chatted with Bonny Roberts, Senior Systems Consultant at OSU Medical Center. Bonny was on hand at the Consider Biking booth, to testify that biking to work is possible, even when coming far from campus.

She takes the bike path near Olentangy River Road, then changes into dress clothes at her office. Her secret to freshening up? “Deodorant and wet wipes,” she said. She can afford lots of wet wipes with the money she’s saving in gasoline.

Finally, I checked in at the Faculty and Staff Fitness Program (FSFP) booth, where they were offering blood pressure checks, as well as the coolest t-shirts of the event.

The fall quarter FSFP class schedule is available, and I see that both yoga and pilates are on the list, as well as my much-beloved water aerobics.

Don’t forget to go to the annual health and wellness fair, “Rally for Wellness,” tomorrow (Thursday, September 17) from 10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. at RPAC.

If you don’t go, you will miss the following:

• Free food
• Free screenings for skin cancer, osteoporosis, vision, and hearing
• All the health and wellness info you could imagine, and more
• Cash-only farmers’ market with fresh local produce
• Brutus Buckeye
• People watching
• Possible strange and amusing behavior from your coworkers (maybe that’s just me)

Admission is… FREE!

Free Your Plan For Health biometric screenings are also being offered… or, should I say, free biometric screening, singular. I just took the next-to-last available spot. Ha!

If you can make it to RPAC at 10:40 a.m., register for your screening now, before that last lonely spot is gone! Go to the YP4H Web site, and click on the link for “Faculty/Staff Schedule Your Biometric Screening” (on the right-hand side).

I ate organic food before “organic” was cool.

When I was growing up, many people in my small Ohio River town grew vegetables. My mother grew corn, zucchini, and tomatoes — so many tomatoes! Neighbors shared what they grew, so we ate home-grown potatoes, peppers, and cabbage, too, among many other choices.

Maybe that’s why the idea of farm sharing appeals to me. It’s a return to my youth.

Last year, an Ohio State study found that grocery shoppers are willing to pay more money for locally grown produce. The author of the news release, my Research Communications colleague Emily Caldwell, showed me a way to eat healthier foods while patronizing local growers and possibly saving some money.

This summer, her family purchased a farm share: they invested in a local farm, and received baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables every week. The investment required a good bit of money upfront, but over the course of the summer they received so much food that Emily feels she saved money on her grocery bills.

Some friends and I are looking into doing the same thing next year, using this Web site to pick a local farm. Until then, I’ve been enjoying some produce that Emily and other co-workers have shared around the office, and I’ve been shopping farmers’ markets.

Chow Line: a service of OSU Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center

That being said, I have to confess that in my adult life I’ve sort of lost the ability to deal with home-grown foods. I mean… if it doesn’t come out of a package, pre-washed and pre-processed (stems removed, etc.), I find myself at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it. For example, there might actually be dirt on it. (”Dirt? On food? Grown in the ground? How could that be?”)

So, how exactly should fresh food be washed? Should I just rinse things in water, or scrub them? Do I need to buy a vegetable brush? Or a bottle of fancy produce wash?

OSU Extension answered my questions today, in the latest edition of Chow Line.

Here’s an excerpt, from editor Martha Filipic:

Clean produce properly. Thin-skinned produce can be rinsed with cool water. Firm-skinned produce can be rubbed with a soft-bristled brush while rinsing. Food safety specialists at Ohio State University recommend washing produce just before consumption. If you clean it beforehand, drying it after washing will decrease the risk of any bacteria left on the produce from multiplying. Also: You don’t need special products for cleaning produce. While they may be effective, the evidence is not yet conclusive and so the CAST [Council of Agricultural Science and Technology] report authors do not recommend them.

Thanks, Martha and Emily!

How about you? Are you thinking about buying locally grown food? Or are you already living this trend, and have tips to share? Leave them in the comments below.

The cities of Hilliard and Upper Arlington are offering some free fitness classes and special deals this fall.

Shannon L. Chaney, Upper Arlington LifeLong Learning & Leisure (LLL) Director, tipped me off to a week of free classes and a discount:

LifeLong Learning & Leisure is featuring a free fitness week from September 14-18 for any of the LLL exercise classes listed on the fitness grid in our 2009 fall catalog. Current and new students are welcome to try out a class they are not currently enrolled in and will need to sign the waiver form provided. Because there is no way for us to monitor attendance, participation will be dependent on space availability. Call 583-5333 for more information.

Take Zumba and Floor, Core & More and Save!
Take advantage of this limited-time fall fitness promotion. Students who register for the same full sections of Floor, Core & More and Zumba in one transaction will receive a 50% discount on their class fee for Floor, Core & More. The pairing of these two complementary classes gives students a well-rounded two-hour workout to enjoy twice a week as part of their regular fitness routine.

LLL class descriptions and online registration are here.

I highly recommend Molly Ohsner’s “Morning Total Body Workout.” Here’s the description:

Morning Total Body Workout
with Molly Ohsner, AFAA Certified, Exer-Safety Certified
This well-rounded class offers variety – simple aerobic movements, weight training using hand-held weights, abdominal strengthening, stretching and relaxation. Bring good aerobic shoes, a mat and a water bottle. Weights are provided. Class can be prorated for two days a week.
TIME: 9:30-10:30 AM, Monday, Wednesday & Friday
LOCATION: Marjorie Jones School of Ballet

I wish I could make it to a mid-morning class, but I just can’t… Molly’s Full Size Fitness class was my first foray into fitness classes all those years ago, and she put me on the road to losing my first 100 lbs. I would describe her class as mostly aerobic dance, as it contains lots of music and simple choreography.

It always meant a lot to me that she had the Exer-Safety certification, because I knew she would offer good counsel on preventing injury. Plus Molly is such a kind and genuine person that she made the class fun. I’m still good friends with some of the people I met there.

Meanwhile, as a Hilliard Recreation and Parks member, I received this email:

The Hilliard Recreation and Parks Department has a few new offerings!

Free Yoga Wellbeing Class
Stop in the Community Center on Wednesday, September 16 at 6:45PM to try out our Yoga Class for FREE!  This movement class follows the classical Hatha Yoga postures of breathing, meditation and relaxation techniques.  Gain flexibility, energy and strength.

The Hilliard Fall and Winter Program Guide and online registration are here.

I have to say, Upper Arlington has Hilliard beat for the sheer breadth of course offerings and ease of online registration. And while the UA course book is in PDF format, Hilliard inexplicably chose to offer its book as a series of high-resolution bitmap images which take a long time to load in a Web browser. Go figure.

Faculty and staff can find similar classes for free through the university Wellness Program, or through membership in RPAC, the Faculty and Staff Fitness Program, or the Center for Wellness and Prevention. But if you want to take fitness classes with friends or family members who don’t work at the university, or if you just want a class that’s closer to home, I think these community classes are a bargain for the money.