When Ed Gilbert finally retired he started living his dream--whiling away the hours out on his boat, thoroughly enjoying each and every day. Life was good.
One day, Ed's wife, who was working with a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts nurse on ways to improve her health, suggested that Ed might want to do the same.
Ed's first reaction was that he didn't need any help. "I said, 'I'm okay. I don't need anything like that.' I didn't think I did. And then I thought about it and I thought, 'well, maybe I should at least look into it.'"
That's when Ed connected with Laura Ryder. Laura is an experienced nurse in our Blue Health Coach program, our telephone-based health education initiative designed to support our members' efforts to take good care of their health.
Laura started off with Ed by doing an initial assessment of his health and family history. She learned that Ed's blood pressure was running on the high side and that he had a family history of heart disease. His weight was not ideal and Ed had never found much time for exercise.
"In retirement, Ed had a lot of time on his hands and he would tend to eat on the go," Laura observed. "He was drinking four to six cans of soda a day out on the boat. He knew had to lose weight but he didn't know where to start."
Laura and Ed talked about various possibilities and Laura suggested that Ed take a fifteen-minute walk twice a week for the next couple of weeks. "It's so important to start with simple, achievable goals," said Laura.
Two weeks later Laura called and Ed had done the walking. Now he wanted to try and make some changes to his eating habits.
"Ed wasn't a big fruit eater so I asked him whether he might bring a piece of fruit with him out on the boat one day a week," Laura said. "I suggested that he substitute bottled water for one or two of the sodas he was drinking. The key was to make it easy for him; to set simple, achievable goals.
"Very small steps can lead to huge changes," Laura says. "As time went by Ed would bring an apple and a handful of grapes out on the boat with him. He was eating cold cuts and we talked about getting low sodium turkey and ham and cutting back a little on the mayo. It's not like he has to eat celery every day at lunch. But the reality was that the changes were cutting out a lot of sodium and sugar."
Three months after he began working with Laura, Ed went to his doctor for his annual physical. "My blood pressure had gone down and I had lost weight. I was feeling great and my doctor was thrilled."
"Losing weight and a healthier lifestyle are more of a habit now," says Ed. " I look at labels--salt, sugar, the rest of it. I've been hypertensive and I'm trying to reduce as much salt as I can and sugar, too. I eat more vegetables and a little more fruit. I watch my fat intake."
"I was never an exercise person but my wife started walking with me and after a while I found myself walking a couple of miles at a whack. I've lost some weight, I sleep well, I feel better. This has enhanced my life tremendously."
Nothing could be more gratifying to Laura. "Preventive care is huge for me," she says. "I see it as the way to approach health care right now. The satisfaction is in seeing someone like make the changes and seeing him in control of his health--that's fantastic."