By Ali Valdez, Director, Human Performance Programs & Strategy
Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, my life revolved around sharing meals with my extended family. We all lived within a two-mile radius of each other and our traditions were steeped in music, films, and delicious food. Each meal celebrated our heritage, our ethnicity, and our love for the common table. We shared laughter, told stories, and of course, we ate.
My grandmother’s kitchen was like a love letter written three times daily.
There was always as much as you needed and in steady supply. Just thinking about it fills my heart with warmth and gratitude for my family.
When moving away from my family, I entered collegiate dorm life with a cafeteria offering a myriad of options that were different than I would have been familiar with at home. Throughout life, food became a missing warm hug, and as I moved and traveled the world, the comforts of home became increasingly distant. But food, wherever I was, was always there for me.
After having my daughter, my activity level and sleep quality dropped, and my workload increased. Twenty pounds hung around, and I was on the path to developing type 2 diabetes.
I understood the severity of diabetes, but I never made that connection with my now-engrained lifestyle choices.
All those family dinners led to obesity, heart disease and other health ailments in my family. Nothing would have been the wake-up call I needed quite like the annual visit I had with my doctor. I was somewhat active, but I was a stress and comfort-snacker. I completely neglected consistent and quality sleep.
The promise of an early pre-diabetes diagnosis is that it is a reversible one. By evaluating my lifestyle and being mindful in the moment of the choices I was making, I could once again, take control of my life and my health. For once, I realized it is was okay to take care of myself, making my health and quality of life my number one priority.
I had started addressing my diagnosis prior to joining ADURO and learning about Revive. Every change I would make would result in a weight decrease (and then increase), but my A1C wouldn’t budge.
When I joined ADURO in the spring of 2017, I chose to embrace Revive; not just as the product manager, but as a participant. It was a divine intervention.
My sixteen-week Revive journey began with my decision to only eat three meals a day. It was honestly, the best decision I have ever made in my life. Revive also showed me that with a little discipline, food and sugar cravings are not purveyors over my body and spirit.
It was through this journey and my own background in mindfulness and resilience, that I have taken on an improved Revive experience, weaving in my own personal narrative. Optimizing what I felt drove high value, and softening some of the recommendations that may require more time and exploration. We have the original sixteen-week format, plus we have expanded to include an additional ten weeks, aligning the program to CDC guidelines.
This program includes practical tools for how to shop for food, prep meals, exercise, start a meditation practice, and more. I realized in my sixteen weeks, there was so much more we could offer and serve it up in video and audio types that would be more exciting, fun, and engaging!
The success of Revive is absolutely tied to the success of the participants, and I have personally seen the results:
- 14 pounds lost
- Good cholesterol (HDL) rose
- A1C value went from 5.8 to 5.4
I am proud to say that with Revive, I am no longer pre-diabetic. I have made a personal commitment to stay on this lifestyle plan, honoring my body and what I have accomplished along the way on the road to vitality and good health.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]
Learn more about Revive
Visit this page for access to our Revive webinar as well as our OUTCOMES REPORT – client success with the Revive Path.]