Hy-Capacity and HCMH square off

With 927 pounds lost by 121 participants in a nine-week Wellness Challenge everyone was a winner.
But based on percentage lost, employees at Hy-Capacity won the first annual Mission Slim Possible competing against employees from Humboldt County Memorial Hospital.
The 35 participants from Hy-Capacity lost a total of 267 pounds. The 86 participants from HCMH lost a total of 659.9 pounds.
In early January, Hy-Capacity and HCMH started a friendly competition with each other to promote wellness in the workplace and within the community. The team members were challenged to focus on creating healthy lifestyle habits, logging active minutes, increasing water intake, getting recommended fruits and vegetables, getting enough sleep and just being positive.
“This was the hospital’s first wellness challenge. Employee wellness is becoming very important as the cost of health care continues to rise. It’s important we take care of each other,” HCMH employees wellness and diabetes educator Jen DeWinter said.
“This was our most successful wellness challenge yet. I think it was the competition. We learned so much during the nine weeks,” Jess Poutre, marketing team leader and member of the Hy-Capacity wellness team, said.
Hy-Capacity employees could choose to participate and formed their own teams. A total of six teams were formed and the weekly weigh-ins were rather unique.
“Each team weighs in on Hy-Capacity’s pallet scale. It’s truly a team approach,” Poutre said.
The hospital had 13 teams and all the challenges focused on something different.
“That made things interesting since it may be easy for someone who exercises daily but does not drink enough water or pay attention to what they eat,” DeWinter said.
“We had a total of five challenges. Three challenges lasted for two weeks and then we had two challenges that lasted for one week,” DeWinter said.
One of the challenges was to eat five different kinds of fruits and vegetables a day. “People brought different fruits and vegetables to try, which made it very interesting,” Poutre said.
While everyone worked hard there were some humorous moments like when they sent each other donuts and cookies to try to sabotage the results.
At a ceremony in the hospital lobby last Tuesday, Hy-Capacity was presented with an engraved plaque. Each year, the winner will be engraved on the plaque.
“We want to encourage more businesses to participate next time or call if they have questions,” DeWinter said.
“The more people the better its going to be,” Poutre said.
For more information people can contact Poutre at jpoutre@hy-capacity.com, or DeWinter at jenniferd2@humboldthospital.org.