Can you solve the health care problem at your organization?
There’s a lot more to a comprehensive wellness program than just nutrition and exercise classes. It requires getting your employees to think about their health and how they spend their health care dollars in a new way.
A few months ago I read The Company that Solved Health Care. The author, John Torinus sets out these five steps for how his company has helped to reduce health care costs. Check out his site here: http://johntorinus.com/how-to-solve-health-care/
His steps are simple and can be implemented at any size organization. We can show you how.
1. Adopt a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP). That means setting up personal health accounts for employees – either an HSA or HRA – as an offset to higher deductibles and co-insurance. Behavior immediately changes, since plan members are spending their own money. Over-utilization disappears. Consumerism appears. Employees start shopping for price, service and quality. Lifestyles improve. CDHP premiums are typically 20%-40% below those of standard plans.
Posted by: Jen Boland in nutrition, fitness on
Jan 23, 2011
Last week, I (Jen) wrote about eating at fast food restaurants. While I gave some half-hearted ideas for keeping it "healthy" - and I mean that in the nicest way possible - I wasn't able to give anything two thumbs up.
This week, I will give you some tips on how to eat on the go. For many of us, our nutrition is holding back our performance. Better nutrition will enable you to train harder and recover more quickly.
One of our readers recently asked if it was possible to eat healthy from a fast food restaurant.
I'm (Jen) not going to be shy, but upon reading the question, I thought, of course not. However, being a columnist, I decided to review menu items at a few of our local fast food chains and see if any menu items meet the criteria based on USDA and American Heart Association guidelines. I also am making the assumption that the meal would be one of three meals a day and allowed for one-third of the diner's daily allowance with the meal. I also based my parameters on normal, active men and women. Keep in mind that smaller women or sedentary individuals need fewer calories and therefore, less fat, protein and carbohydrate.
Posted by: Jen Boland in nutrition, fitness on
Jan 16, 2011
"I know I shouldn't eat cookies, but I just can't help myself. I'm a cookie monster!"
Sound familiar? Everyone knows that cookies (and candy, cakes, pies, ice cream, other sweets) offer suboptimal nutrition. But why are cookies so popular? Why do we eat monstrous portions that were not a part of our food intentions?
Why? Because cookies (and other sweets) taste good. Because athletes--and all people, for that matter--who get too hungry tend to crave sweets.
Most athletes believe cookies are the problem. I challenge that belief. I see cookies as being the symptom and getting too hungry as being the problem. That is, when you get too hungry, you experience a very strong drive to eat. Cookies!!!
Posted by: Jen Boland in nutrition, fitness on
Dec 05, 2010
Do you run to eat or eat to run? A few years ago, I did the Bolder Boulder 10K. The race goodie bag was a lunch bag with the slogan “Run to Eat” emblazoned upon it.
Many athletes believe that because they exercise they can eat anything they want, yet their performance likely suffers more than they think.
How many great athletes out there could be even better if they paid more
