Suzanne Theodoras lost 40 pounds while her husband Basil shed about 20, and none of it would’ve been possible without the completion of a health education program that has reached Athens.
But the Complete Health Improvement Program, called CHIP, is not a weight loss program. For many participants, slimming down is an added bonus that takes a backseat to reducing cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and triglyceride levels, among others, Suzanne said.
“I don’t want people to think that this is Weight Watchers,” she added. “Losing weight is not the goal.”
Students are encouraged to cut out alcohol, corn syrup, oils, fats, dairy, meats and eggs in favor of fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.
Because the curriculum has recently been updated to include new information about the environment and how to continue the lifestyle after graduation, each CHIP class will now be made up of 18 sessions instead of 16, Athens CHIP coordinator Sheri Rettig said.
The sentiment, however, will remain the same: to provide a lifestyle intervention and education program with the goal of reducing disease receptors by adopting better health habits and appropriate lifestyle modifications.
Since its inaugural session in April of 2011, CHIP has turned out more than 220 alumni, 8 of those being local physicians, Rettig said.
Dr. Penny Shelton, a physician at the Holzer Clinic, went through the program in September of 2011. Although she signed up for the class to test it out before recommending it to patients, she and her husband decided to adopt the lifestyle and have never looked back.
“Getting down to the root of it, I no longer eat animal products,” Shelton said. “I eat a low-fat, plant-based diet. I also drink more water and stopped caffeine.”
For Basil Theodoras, who has now been living a CHIP-approved lifestyle for two years, the switch initially seemed impossible as well as undesirable.
“It took me 77 years to learn how to eat meat,” he said. “And now I have made that change.”
Basil Theodoras grew up on a farm and owned a poultry processing plant with his father. He also had two heart surgeries; a bypass surgery followed four years later by an angioplasty.
Now he requires only half the blood pressure and diabetes medications he took before completing CHIP.
And the ‘complete health improvement’ didn’t stop there.
“I don’t know if it is any effect or not, but my doctor said that my hearing had improved,” Basil said. “I have been wearing hearing aids, and he had to adjust them down a little bit.”
af116210@ohiou.edu
