HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (March 29, 2019) – A nurse educator from the Redstone Arsenal Center for Comprehensive Wellness hosted a lunchtime talk with Huntsville Center employees here on the topic of nutrition March 29.
Mary Bouldin, a registered nurse who holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and is a certified personal trainer from the American College of Sports Medicine, spoke as part of the third-annual Commander’s Challenge, a health and fitness initiative started by Col. John Hurley, Huntsville Center commander.
Government employees are eligible to utilize the Center for Comprehensive Wellness Clinic, which held its grand opening Nov. 16 to replace the Fox Wellness Clinic.
During her talk, Bouldin addressed subjects like metabolism, portion control, how the body uses different nutrients, and knowing what to look for on food labels. This is her second such visit with Huntsville Center employees as part of the challenge.
Bouldin also talked about creating a realistic way of fitting food planning into one’s schedule, which she said too many people don’t devote enough time to or ignore altogether. She said the average person takes 15 minutes per day to plan meals.
“If you only worked for 15 minutes a day, how do you think your employer would see you?” she asked rhetorically. “You wouldn’t keep your job very long. We sometimes spend a lot more time on other priorities than maintaining this one chance at the only body that we’re ever going to have.
“A lot of us put so much effort into those other priorities that our health gets put to the wayside, when actually if we put our health right up front, we would be a better employee; we would be a better mother or sister or brother or whatever other functions we have to do, we’d have more energy to do them with,” she added.
Bouldin also led a hands-on activity in which volunteers filled up different cups with cubes representing calories from fat and calories from sugar to illustrate the marked difference between coffee-based drinks of the same size. In one example, a 20-ounce vanilla whole-milk latte had 320 calories, whereas a vanilla breve with steamed milk and whipped cream of the same size had a whopping 740 calories.
For those who consume these kinds of drinks frequently, Bouldin said, even simply cutting them out of a diet and making no other diet changes could equate to shedding pounds in the modest double digits at the end of a year.
If you missed the presentation, the same expert-level advice and more are available at the Redstone Arsenal Center for Comprehensive Wellness. The center is co-located with the Fox Army Health Center and offers a variety of services including health and wellness assessments, stress management advice, tobacco cessation education, and physical fitness and nutrition guidance. Employees should be sure to check with their supervisors before arranging to attend.
To learn more, visit www.redstone.amedd.army.mil and find the “Wellness Clinic” link under the Services tab. To schedule an appointment at the center, call 256-955-8888, Ext. 1440.
To learn more about this year’s Commander’s Challenge, visit www.hnc.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Stories/Article/1773759.