Healthpark offers whole-health approach

Dec. 27—With 2022 coming to a close, there will soon be an influx of New Year's resolutions, which often include goals like exercising more, losing weight and eating healthy — or a combination of all three.

Fitness coaches at the Owensboro Health Healthpark are expecting a growth in new membership, as well, as people look to begin their journeys into 2023.

According to Owensboro Health Lifestyle Medicine Specialist Dr. Scott Black, however, there's more to it than a person simply saying they want to make healthy changes.

"The first step in any of those things is really defining why they want to do whatever their goal is," he said. "If you don't have a strong why, a good why, then it's harder to maintain that behavior change. It's tough when everybody else is doing something less than healthy, and you're trying to watch what you eat or go exercise — you've got to remind yourself why you're doing it in the first place.

"If you have a good, strong reason and remind yourself of that, it's a little easier."

The mistakes a lot of people make in trying to create lifestyle changes, Black noted, is that they think too broadly — "I want to lose weight" or "I want to be healthier" don't address the root problem, he added.

According to Black, the best method is to use the SMART approach — specific goal, measurable goal, achievable goal, realistic goal and time-bound goal.

"I think, a lot of times, people set unachievable goals but then get frustrated and give up," he said. "Set realistic, attainable goals, and then if you don't get there in the time you wanted, don't give up. Just do an honest self-assessment: 'Did I really follow the plan? If I didn't follow the plan in the first place, can I follow the plan? Is the plan really worth it at that point?' If it's not, try something new and reformulate your plan."

The biggest struggles, Black added, are all around us.

"The environment we live in is stacked against us," he said. "Using weight loss as an example, in order to lose weight, you've got to spend more calories than you're taking in on a daily basis. How we spend calories is mainly through metabolism and physical activity. Metabolism is what it is, but physical activity — if you think about most of the work that we do, the hardest thing I do all day is either use a pencil or a keyboard, and I don't burn a whole lot of calories doing that. I suspect most people are in the same boat, even people that do physical work have some kind of machine or tools that replace physical work.

"And then, if you flip over to the other side of the equation, we have more food available to us than at any time in the history of mankind. And it's easy to get, it's cheap, it tastes good and it's loaded with calories."

The Healthpark has registered dietitians and several different nutrition-based weight management programs, which cater to both the physical and mental aspects of reaching those goals, Black said. Those programs work hand-in-hand with the Lifestyle medicine philosophy he practices — teaching individuals to improve their overall wellness by improving not only their nutrition, but their physical activity, sleep, stress management, toxin exposure and social relationships.

Seeing people reach benchmarks in those areas, Black said, is the most rewarding aspect of his profession.

"I see so many people that don't realize how much power they have to improve their own health," he said. "I regularly see people coming in that don't think they can exercise. They've either been told or think that they can't move. We know that movement is absolutely essential to health, or even just to take care of yourself. We start them moving just a little bit, and then they come back a month later and instead of being able to walk 20 feet, now they're walking 100 feet. Then a month later, they're walking a quarter of a mile. They can see the real changes in that, and then suddenly they become more functionally independent.

"That's remarkably rewarding, to see something like that. That's immediate feedback, immediate satisfaction that I get from that but also they should get from that."

More information about Healthpark services, membership, operating hours, programs and other details can be found at OwensboroHealth.org/Healthpark or by calling 270-688-5433.