The sun begins to rise over Tyler. An occasional car crawls down the streets and the town is mostly quiet.
Mostly.
In the parking lot of the First Christian Church on the corner of Broadway Avenue and Loop 323, pop music blares from an iPod cradle speaker while a 27-year-old blonde shouts encouragement over the energetic expressions of Lady Gaga and Vanilla Ice.
“Keep your feet moving! Let's go, let's go! High knees!”
Nearly 30 women jog around the white-painted parking spots in an ill-lighted rendition of follow-the-leader. They range in age and physique, but their instructor knows their names and pushes them relentlessly. This class, the first of several she teaches each weekday, starts at 5:15 a.m.
This is the East Texas Adventure Boot Camp, a hardcore “gym alternative” coupling daily exercise and nutrition education for a healthy lifestyle. East Texas Adventure Boot Camp instructor Melanie Young said her program's retention rate is 90 percent, much of that credited to participants driving one another, a form of accountability.
Accountability is a key to a successful lifestyle change, health officials say. Research shows that working out with others and keeping a food journal are two effective ways to stick with a healthy weight-loss plan.
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BENEFITS OF FITNESS REGIMEN |
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According to WebMD's website, keeping a healthy lifestyle filled with a fitness regimen can prevent or improve these conditions:
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Type 2 diabetes
- Obesity
- Back pain
- Osteoporosis
- Psychological benefits
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But only three out of 10 Americans exercise consistently, according to the webpage authored by Dr. David Di Paolo of The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler. Programs like the Boot Camp, in which participants are held accountable, have a higher success rate than individuals who workout alone.
“On average, half of individuals who start an exercise program drop out within six months,” Paolo wrote. “Studies have shown that social support increases the likelihood of sticking with a fitness regimen … Surveys have indicated that most people prefer to exercise with others rather than alone.”
And tracking every calorie is critical as well.
According to a Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study, “The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost … Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records.”
The effects of food journaling mainly are psychological. Prevention Magazine notes that not only does food journaling track culinary strengths and weaknesses, it makes the user more aware and accountable for eating habits.
Here is how some East Texans utilize exercise and food journaling to address their health:
DeAnne West
East Texas Adventure Boot Camp veterans' pace and muscle tone advertise the program's effectiveness.
Camp vet DeAnne West's arms and legs could make for a striking fitness-magazine cover. Mrs. West, 42, has been a Boot Camp attendee for more than two years. She has missed none of the 23 four-week sessions since she signed up. She lives more than 20 miles away in Overton and gets up at 3:30 a.m. to get to class.
But Mrs. West wasn't always so fit.
It was about 6 a.m. on a day in early 2008, and Mrs. West was cooking sausage for her son's breakfast before taking him to Overton High School. A TV commercial playing in the background caught her attention.
“There it is! I need to grab a pen and paper,” she thought.
The commercial touted a Tyler exercise program. An overweight Mrs. West spent much of her time alone in the house while her husband was at work. She wanted a change, and the outdoor, women-only, self-paced program interested her.
She signed up for the 5:15 a.m. East Texas Adventure Boot Camp class that day.
On Mrs. West's first day of Boot Camp, her alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. Worries about the camp raced through her mind at NASCAR speed. It was near freezing when she left the house at 4:20 a.m.
“Surely we will be inside the church gym since it is pretty chilly,” Mrs. West remembered thinking to herself during the 40-minute drive to Tyler. “What are we going to be doing?”
She arrived at First Christian Church before 5:15 a.m. to find women warming up not indoors but in the parking lot.
“We are not inside, and it's cold,” she remembered thinking. “I am not a big fan of cold. This instructor is crazy.”
The class started at 5:15 a.m. with a parking-lot jog. Five minutes later, Mrs. West found herself out of breath – with 55 minutes of class to go.
“I am in trouble,” she remembered thinking.
Then came jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, skipping rope, hopping, skipping and more jogging.
With her muscles screaming, Mrs. West's body protested. She felt like she was being physically reborn.
“I felt like a spastic jellyfish,” she said.
But five days a week for the next two months, she came back for more, fighting through constant soreness.
“The only things that weren't sore were my earlobes,” she said.
Encouragement between fellow campers inspired her.
When she felt tired or grumpy, a camper or the instructor shouted out “Good job, DeAnne!” or “Keep going!”
Friendships formed outside of camp. The kinship, her own goals and daily pep-talk e-mails from the instructor kept her going.
The women of East Texas Adventure Boot Camp jog around a church parking lot to warm up before the day's main excercise activity.
Lisa May
A year after her Boot Camp involvement, Mrs. West convinced a friend, Lisa May, 45, to try it instead of regular Spinning workouts.
Weight issues filled Mrs. May's family history, and she wanted to be an exception.
Boot Camp made Mrs. May think of her son, Spec. Casey Jones, who was serving in Iraq.
“I wonder what kind of training he did today,” she remembered thinking. “I wonder if he's as cold as I am.”
They talked about their respective workouts during overseas calls. Some of their exercises were the same. That provided her with incentive to stick with Boot Camp.
One day, her husband, Richard, brought up his wife's granite abs during a conversation with friends. Mrs. May said the observation was both surprising and inspiring.
Looking Ahead
Mrs. West said she is 20 pounds lighter and lost “more inches than I care to remember.” She looks forward to Boot Camp and participates in 5K races whenever she can.
And she's happy, with no plans to quit Boot Camp – and the 3:30 a.m. wakeup time and 80 minutes of daily round-trip driving – anytime soon.
Mrs. May, who has found Boot Camp to be addicting, feels the same way.
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