Ascend’s attention to wellness inspires team member to get fit, lose pounds
On Aug. 1, 2014, Jessica Hardy experienced a defining moment while sitting at her desk in Ascend’s Houston office. That day, she decided once and for all to gain control over her weight.
She immediately headed to the gym located downstairs in the same office building and signed up for a membership. Next, she created an account on MyFitness Pal, a calorie tracking website. A determined Hardy then combined those tools with the company’s wellness resources to jumpstart her weight loss journey.
One year later, Hardy is 75 pounds lighter and serving as a wellness coach to her Houston teammates, helping them to become fit.
“I don’t think I could have succeeded if I didn’t work for a company that encourages fitness,” said Hardy, who tried numerous times in the past to lose weight. “Having that support made it much easier.”
Once completely sedentary and barely able to lift her 3-year-old daughter, she now exercises six days a week, runs up to five miles at a time and lifts 25-pound dumbbells in each hand.
In addition, she walks more than 10,000 steps each day, sometimes reaching 15,000 steps to earn cash rewards through Virgin Pulse, a component of the company’s package of wellness resources. She passed level 5 – the program’s highest level – in August, four months ahead of the end-of-the-year deadline. She used her rewards to buy a new running watch.
“One of the biggest things was getting my Fitbit hooked up to Virgin Pulse, which has goals that you can strive for and that you are able to reach,” said Hardy, Ascend’s SharePoint architect. “For me, it was a real motivator, and it doesn’t hurt that at end of it, there is money involved.”
Becoming more physically active was just a small part of her journey. She also had to learn how to adjust her eating and to make better choices. She eats all the same foods, including chocolate and bread, but eats less of it. She is more discerning about indulging in her favorite foods. If it goes against her weight loss goal, she won’t eat it.
Her simple formula – eat less, move more – helped her lose an average of 1.5 pounds a week for seven months. She’s now working to lose an additional 10 pounds to reach her goal weight.
Her success has motivated her husband to get back in shape. He started eating better and running again. He has lost about 15 pounds.
Hardy said she finds it amusing that she’s a wellness coach, having been overweight most of her life. She leads her teammates in stretching exercises for two minutes every day and helps a teammate with her wellness goals by exercising with her once a week.
She is proud of her accomplishments and enjoys sharing what she has learned, she said. Most importantly, she is glad she can be a healthy role model for her daughter.
“I want her to see not that I’m thin, but that I’m fit,” Hardy said. “I want her to know that it’s completely normal to say no to a cookie and normal to go running.”
Another positive aspect of her newfound fitness is that she has become an avid runner. She has signed up for three races this month, including a 10k trail run. Her goal is not to win but to finish the race and beat her best time, she said.
“Every time I do something new, I’m amazed that I can do it,” she said. “It gives me an incredible level of confidence to find that I can do new things and it makes me want to do the next new things.”
Her message to her teammates: “The journey to weight loss and fitness is possible. You can make changes that are sustainable. Start where you are and slowly build to where you want to be.”
At Ascend, our employees’ health and wellness matters to us. That’s why we provide a package of wellness resources that is designed to assist and encourage our employees in improving their physical, financial and emotional health. We offer Virgin Pulse and Weight Watchers, which has helped our employees lose hundreds of pounds through exercise and eating better. Last year, more than 4 billion steps were logged into the Virgin Pulse website. We also offer tobacco cessation classes, employee assistance programs to address emotional health, and financial planning to help employees and their families get out of debt and plan for retirement.Thank you for your interest in Ascend Performance Materials
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