Tag Archives for Don Grebien

The Best Of…Healthy Life Style Key to Losing and Maintaining Weight Loss

Published August  2008, Senior Digest

           Not only are food and gasoline prices skyrocketing nationwide, a growing number of Americans with bulging waist lines are watching their weight steadily increase, too.  Those overweight see diets as a remedy to drop the pounds.  But to most, finding the right weight loss strategy is at most confusing and difficult to follow.

           For over forty years, Donald Grebien, a supply chain manager at the Mansfield, Massachusetts-based American Insulated Wire Corp.(AIW), has always struggled with his waistline.  In high school, Grebien recalls being a ‘chubby senior’, weighing as much as 280 pounds. Even though he managed to shed 30 pounds through regular exercise, eliminating snacks and eating healthy foods, it is still a daily struggle. 

           Grebien’s weight would fluctuate throughout his middle age because of a variety of factors.   His family obligations of raising two small children, combined with the pressures of being a Pawtucket City Councilman, made it extremely difficult for the young man to successfully stick with a diet. It was not until this young City Councilman was faced with high blood pressure, that would ultimately force him to confront his weight issue.

            “Losing weight is a daily battle for me,” says Grebien, who noted that when his weight spiked, it was very uncomfortable wearing tight-fitting clothes.

            Joining Weight Watchers with his wife, Laureen has made a world of difference to Grebien.  He has maintained his weight loss of 10.3 pounds for the last 10 weeks.  “I am on track and feel a lot better,” he says, even noting that his waist line seems to be shrinking a bit.  His workplace even supports his dieting efforts, such as offering on site Weight Watcher classes, a nutrition newsletter and promoting employees walking during their lunch hours.

            While Grebien is tackling his weight problem through the support of his wife and belonging to a community weight loss program, finding the right diet plan or strategy can be difficult chore for many. 

 Tips on Losing Weight

            “Get responsible and sound advice about dieting before you begin,” recommends Randi Belhumeur, a Registered Dietitian who serves as statewide nutrition coordinator for the Rhode Island Health Department’s Initiative for Healthy Weight.  There is no  major expense for the consultation because most health plans now cover nutritional counseling as long as you have a medical diagnoses (including high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes), she says.

             Belhumeur says that a nutritionist can provide specifics as to serving sizes, label reading, meal planning and weight loss goal setting.  When setting your weight loss goals, “always start with small goals that are realistic for you,” she says.  “Losing a pound or two a week is considered by medical experts to be a safe weight loss,” she adds.

            “Don’t forget to dovetail physical activity into your weight loss goals,” suggests Belhumeur.  “If a pedometer tells you that you that the baseline number of steps you take a day is 2,000, increase that number by 1,000 steps,” she says.

            “Always keep an ‘activity and food journal’ also,” adds Belhumeur, who stresses that the documentation will be critical to your losing and maintaining your weight loss.  “You really need to be honest with yourself when you are writing the details down.  Journaling will help you make better food choices and make you aware of what you are eating,” she says.

            Belhumeur also recommends to plan exercising each week by scheduling the time in your Black Berry, Palm Pilot or in your schedule book.  “With exercise, find something you enjoy doing.  If you don’t like going to the gym, you just won’t go.”

            Social support  from family and friends is also very crucial in your efforts to successfully lose weight, notes Belhumeur.  “Weight Watchers is one of the few responsible diet programs that offers group support and sound dieting advice,” she says.

            Finally, Belhumeur says, “Don’t forget the behavioral component of weight loss.”  Psychotherapy or nutritional counseling can be helpful to changing a behavior, like night time eating or eating unhealthy foods at the workplace.      .

 Weight Loss and Lifestyle Changes

            Ray Rickman, senior consultant, for Rhode Island’s Shape Up RI Program, a state-wide exercise and weight challenge program, is not a fan of dieting.  His nonprofit group helps participants  improve their health and lifestyle by increasing their physical activity levels and developing smart eating habits. 

            Supported by Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Life Span, over 12,000 Rhode Islanders, in 13,000 teams participate to see who can lose the greatest percentage of collective team weight, log the most hours of physical activity, and walk the highest number of pedometer steps over a twelve week period.

             The fifty-five year old Eastsider and State Legislator has lost over 20 pounds by following his nonprofit group’s philosophy of reducing daily calorie intake and daily exercise.

            According to Rickman, people become overweight or obese because of their lifestyle and not from medical or chemical imbalance.

             “Most diets you just starve yourself or you eat foods you don’t like,” Rickman says.  “While many people can lose weight by dieting, they usually regain all the weight back within 12 months.” 

            “We consume more food than the body can rid itself of, where portion sizes are increasing”, say Rickman, noting that an ‘unhealthy life style and poor eating’ causes weight gain.  Almost 50 years ago, a typical orange juice serving was 250 calories; today a larger glass increases the calories to 800, he adds. 

            “In every area of our lives we try to find ways to not exercise,” Rickman notes.  “Go into a four story building and you will see people waiting for an elevator to go to the second floor, rather than just walking up two flights of stairs.  Or watch shoppers wait for a parking space close to the grocery store’s entrance rather than parking farther away.”

            To successfully lose weight, find out how many calories you need a day, based on your height and weight, Rickman recommends. “ He estimates that eating 200 fewer calories along with exercise will help you lose a 1/16 of a pound a day.  In just one month , a person can lose 2 pounds. In one year, you can expect to lose at least 25 pounds.

            Exercise does not have to be grueling.  Rickman says, “Go to the grocery store and park in the last spot on the lot where the employees park. By doing this you can lose 1/36 of a pound by choosing not to park near the entrance.  Walking up three flights of stairs will also help you lose 1/36 of a pound. 

            Brown Medical Student, Rajiv Kumar, Founder of Shape Up RI program, sees long-term sustained weight loss for those participating in his program.  The average weight loss per person is 10 pounds with preliminary research indicating that 70 percent of the participants have kept their weight off for six months. 

           For chronic dieters like Grebien (or this writer) who work daily to shed pounds, the secret to successfully losing and maintaining weight loss may well be tied to healthy eating habits, exercise and an active social network to create accountability and motivation, It’s as simple as that.

            Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based health care writer who covers aging, health care, and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.  This article appeared in August 2008 issue of Senior Digest.

Program Allows World War II Vets to Get High School Diplomas  

Published in the Pawtucket Times on March 18, 2002

Thousands of young students across the nation left their high school studies to join the armed forces during World War II.

Their high school education would instead be gleaned from life experience learned on the bloody battlefields rather than from school textbooks.

Former Pawtucket resident George Redman, a World War II veteran, along with others, will receive his long-awaited high school diploma in May, courtesy of a state initiative dubbed Operation Recognition.

The City of Pawtucket has joined other Rhode Island communities in conferring diplomas to aging war veterans in their 70s and 80s who were honorably discharged between Sept. 16, 1940 and Dec. 31, 1946. Diplomas can also be awarded posthumously. Additionally, those who have earned GEDs are also eligible to receive their diplomas.

For many like then 17-year-old Redman, high school took a back seat as the clouds of war swirled over Europe. Times were tough for the youngster’s family because the Great Depression was just ending. It became necessary for Redman to take a job to help his disabled war veteran father supplement the family’s coffers. It became a very easy decision for Redman, who was playing baseball Pawtucket Red Sox, to drop out of Pawtucket High School’s Class of 1939.

Initially, Redman had wanted to serve on an aerial bomber. Coming from a military family fueled this high school dropout’s desire to serve his country even more, says the longtime resident of North Attleboro. He claims that his uncle was the first Pawtucket resident to die in the Great War of 1917.

“Wait until they call you,” his mother urged. That is what the young Redman did, taking a night shift job at New England Pretzel Company, packing hundreds of boxes of salty pretzels each shift. Before he entered military service, the young man would ultimately become a drill press operator at H P& B American Machine Company.

When his draft notice arrived in 1942, 21-year-old Redman gave up his manufacturing job, traveling to Fort Devens in Avery, Mass., for training. Later he would travel to Oklahoma and Texas for field training before being sent overseas to fight in the bloody Italian Campaign. Two bullets from a German machine gun in 1944 ended Redman’s military career. Upon his discharge, he returned to the states with a Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman’s Bade and the Bronze Star Medal.

Redman would later re-enroll at Pawtucket Hight School, but a bout with the flu forced him to withdraw from his studies. Not having hs high school diploma never negatively impacted his career selling office supplies and equipment. “You learned your trade on the road,” he quips.

More than 50 years after World War II, not graduating high school, however did come back to haunt him. The retired war vet called a local college to inquire taking paralegal courses. Not having is diploma effectively blocked his admission to take courses.

“Right there, I knew that I needed that high school diploma to further my education,” Redman says. “Any college course I wanted to take would require my diploma.”

Like Redman, Pawtucket resident Henry Fugere, 78, a World War II veteran who is a retired electrician from Rhode Island Hospital never graduated from high school. Helping to support his 15 sibling and a nation mobilizing for war ended his dream of  obtaining a high school diploma.

“Getting my high school diploma is now a matter of principle,” Fugere says, explaining why he filed out his application to participate. “I will feel a little bit prouder of myself for getting that diploma. I didn’t earn my diploma by sitting at a desk buy by the hard way, through serving my country and the many jobs I held.”

A chance conversation by Assistant General Manager Laureen Grebien, of Gregg’s Restaurant on North Main Street, Providence with Redman ultimately got Pawtucket City Councilor Donald Grebien involved in bringing  Operation Recognition to Pawtucket.

Grebien remembers his wife, Laureen, waking him up at 11:30 p.m. that night to tell him of her conversation with Redman and about the war vet’s desire to get his high school diploma.

After contacting local veterans groups, the Rhode Island Veterans Affairs Office, and checking the Internet for programs implemented by other states, Grebien said, “things just snowballed.”

With the blessing of the Pawtucket City Council President John Barry, Grebien created a Veterans Ad Hoc Committee that would later hammer out Pawtucket’s Operation Recognition program. Members include Grebien along with School Committee Chair Raymond Spooner. Santa Almeida, a veteran and president of AFSCME Local 1012, Ken McGill from the mayor’s office and representatives of the Pawtucket School Department.

Thirty-plus meetings held over the last year have created Pawtucket’s Operation Recognition Program, promoted it and have planned the upcoming graduation ceremony on May 31 at Veterans Amphitheater on Roosevelt Avenue, Grebien says.

“Promoting the program heavily in newspapers, on cable TV and to veterans groups is key to our success,” Grebien notes, because lack of records block the efforts to develop accurate listing of all those eligible to receive a high school diploma. High school yearbooks, with a listing of students from 1941 to 1946, were used to identify potential candidates.

“Approximately 10 veterans responded,” Grebien adds, noting that he hopes to identify other eligible former veterans, too.

Ad Hoc Veterans Committee member Ray Spooner, who chairs the Pawtucket School Committee stands strongly behind the program.

“Their education was sacrificed for our freedom,” he says. “After all these years we are giving seniors their just due for all their years of service to their country. For all the people that we can find who are eligible to participate, they deserve getting their diplomas.”

Applications to participate in Operation Recognition for War II Veterans are due on March 31.