For those looking improve their health, Altru Family YMCA is offering another session of its long-term lifestyle change program, Weigh 2 Change.
"This is not a diet," said Patti McEnroe, the YMCA's healthy living director. "This is a lifestyle change, so it's all the different things involved in the mind, the body and the spirit."
Although the course is geared toward individuals with prediabetes, it is open to anyone.
When Karen Fore joined the program in March 2016, she had prediabetes. Now, a year later, she is happy to say her blood sugar has returned to the normal range.
"We had a really good group," she said. "We had a fantastic leader. The program had the directions with the paperwork and things like that, but it was really the group of people (that helped me)," Fore said.
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Since completing the program, Fore has changed not only her lifestyle but her mentality about food, exercise and wellbeing.
"I'm not limiting myself." She says in regards to the foods she does not eat anymore. "I'm just focusing on really truly the right things to eat and healthier things. You have to be in the right frame of mind."
Weigh 2 Change is provided by the Altru Family YMCA and the Center for Disease Control, which guides the program's curriculum. Meetings are one hour once a week for 16 weeks, with monthly meetings for six months after that.
The goals of the program include helping participants reduce body weight by 7 percent and getting 150 minutes of cardio a week. Sessions cover a wide variety of topics from ways to stay motivated, to coping with negative thoughts about food.
The next Weigh 2 Change session will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the YMCA. A Tuesday night session will be offered at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Altru Family YMCA.
The cost is $75 for YMCA and Choice Health and Fitness Members, $125 for the general public. Financial assistance is available.
