Norfolk Southern WellNS
Lose Weight

Take advantage of the WellNS programs available. Your path to a healthier lifestyle and your body weight goal is just around the corner.

WellNS provides tools and resources to help you plan a program for losing weight. You can also enroll in health coaching and have your personal counselor provide advice and helpful hints on the phone. Your coach can help you set goals, develop tips and techniques to help you through those tempting times and get you more active.

Your WellNS resources also include health recipes, body calculators and discounts for weight management programs.

Pick one of these resources and get started. WellNS has something to offer for you.

Sometimes Losing is the Best Way to Win

With obesity-related deaths now totaling 300,000 a year, dropping pounds to reach a healthy weight is critical. Do it and you reduce your risk of coronary artery disease, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke.

What is a Healthy Weight?

Reaching a specific weight is not as important as the lifestyle changes you make to become healthy. For instance a heavier person may be healthier than a thin person who eats poorly and isn’t physically active.

Your body will naturally settle into a healthy weight when you consistently eat healthy foods and stay physically active.

Benefits of Losing Weight

  • Feeling better in body, mind, and spirit
  • Reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer
  • Looking better
  • Having more energy
  • Reducing heartburn and acid reflux
  • Sleeping and breathing better
  • Reducing tension, stress, anxiety, or depression

Changing Your Lifestyle

A restrictive diet is only a short-term solution. In fact, falling into a cycle of losing and gaining weight can be harder on the body than just being overweight.

You need a long-term solution that incorporates good nutrition – smaller portions, more fruits and vegetables and regular physical activity.

Portion control is Key

The following are tips from Harvard nutritionists: Instead of three meals a day, eat one meal and two snacks. The meal should consist of two to three vegetables, and a small piece of meat, fish or fowl for 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day. A meal replacement shake or power bar for the snacks with a fruit is a convenient snack for most of us. If your current caloric intake is above 2,000 calories per day, a gradual step down to fewer calories is the healthy approach.

It will help your efforts to be more aware of portion-size. Don’t read or watch television while you’re eating. Also, take at least 20 minutes to eat – studies show that people who eat faster eat more.

Fitting Physical Activity into a Busy Day

There are little things you can do that add up to big results:

  • Take the stairs instead of the elevator
  • Park far away and walk to your office or the grocery store
  • Forgo the drive-through – walk inside instead
  • Instead of e-mailing coworkers, get up and walk to their desks
  • Ride your bike to work or to the store
  • Consider scheduling your activity in the morning if you tend to talk yourself out of it later in the day

5 tips to reaching a healthy weight

Don’t diet: Abandon the idea that you’ll go on a diet and quickly lose weight – this approach almost always fails. Instead, try to make healthy eating choices that will work for you.

Think about your relationship with food: Do you eat when you’re bored, stressed or sad? Make a list of other ways you can comfort or reward yourself that don’t involve food.

Slowly change your eating habits: You may be tempted to do a complete diet overhaul, but, you’ll be more likely to stay with the changes you make if you pick just one eating habit to work on at a time.

Establish goals you can reach: Set small and specific goals- for example, start with a goal to walk 15 minutes, three times a week, then slowly increase it to 20 minutes four times a week.

Get some sleep: Two separate studies have found that if you don’t sleep well, you are more prone to gain weight. These studies show that people who sleep five hours or less per night have higher levels of a hormone that triggers hunger.