How To Build A Successful Small Business Wellness Program

.   How To Make  Weight Loss Be Fun Weight loss will not be fun if weight loss is just another word for dieting. Here are the best practices for making weight loss fun in my new book, The Boomer Generation Diet: 1.  No Hunger. Hunger is not fun. A wellness program based on denial may generate a “climbing the mountain top” weight loss result. But research points to this type of weight loss effort resulting in a decline back down the mountain that often results in gaining weight beyond the initial starting point. 2.  Eat Good For You Food That You Like To Eat. The key to weight loss success is to eat food that you like to eat that also promotes weight loss. This best practice has two advantages. First, you can eat all the food you want because it is good for you. So there is no hunger. Second, you will want to eat this food because it tastes good. 3.Make Exercise Fun. No pain, no gain works when trying out for the high school sport team but it does not sustain weight loss. What we do love to do is play. We will love to exercise, and will sustain our exercise efforts, if it feels like play. 4.  Cheat! Let’s admitted it now…we are cheaters. So including the foods and drinks you love so much that you know you will not live without them in a weight loss plan is just common sense. Doing so will reduce stress and less stress can mean less weight. Redesigning Wellness Programs Around Fun Designing any measurable business activity, including wellness programs, based on promoting work associates having fun is outside the box. But in terms of wellness programs, fun is required to achieve sustain results. A wellness program that creates stress will fail. A wellness program that promotes fun will be sustained. The above best practices for achieving sustained weight loss should be the basis for creating a wellness program. Doing so will require a path for individual customization. What is fun or tasty or playful for one associate is not necessarily that for others. It will require coaching. If it was obvious what foods taste good and promote weight loss then we all would be eating them. Coaching will help individual work associates define their menu mix of good for you food that tastes good. It will require flexibility. Figuring out what is a fun exercise typically requires individual experimentation. A business’ wellness program has to be flexible enough to enable work associates to experiment across a range of potential exercises. Finally, the program needs to be focused not on results but behaviors and mental attitudes. A wellness program using weight loss or aerobic improvement metrics as the measure of success will be sustained. Sustained wellness programs have goals tied to healthier behaviors and lifestyle changes. A focus on lost pounds or increased aerobic levels typically create stress sourced from a sense of being judged a winner or loser. The sustained path to wellness is to focus on enabling worker associate behaviors and lifestyle choices. The numbers will take care of themselves if the work associates is making healthier behavior and lifestyle choices. Related articles: Create Employee Business Teams To Enable Weight Loss Success Individual Weight Loss Is Now A Business Cost Issue How Much Money Is Weight-Gain Costing Your Business? One Small Step to Executive Health and Fitness