Ingrid Friesen Moser, MA, RD has degrees in both Christian Formation (AMBS) and Nutrition (Goshen College) and worked in the fields of dietetics and wellness for over 20 years. She is the author of Body Talk: Speaking the Words of Health (Living Stewardship Series, Herald Press 2007) and has been the wellness consultant for The Corinthian Plan since its beginning in 2010. Ingrid is a member of Southside Fellowship in Elkhart, Indiana where her husband David Moser is the pastor.
Towards the end of 2013 my husband and I both had separate conversations with a wellness coach as part of our Corinthian Plan wellness benefits. One limiting factor we each noted individually in these conversations was the conflict between family commitments and time to exercise. The wellness coach helped us reimagine our situation and out of that my husband and I made it a goal to incorporate exercise as part of our family life starting with our family vacation in 2014. Once the re-visioning of our habits was set, our eyes started to open to new possibilities and ways of doing things.
In our commitment to go to our area church conference gathering in July, we saw an opportunity to extend our time in Wisconsin and try a family first: a bicycle touring trip on Wisconsin’s great rails to trails routes.
When the snow melted, we started training. Our boys, ages 7 and 8 at the time, got excited as we looked at maps and learned about the places we would see and cycle through—like train tunnels that are a half mile long! Levi and Peter would announce after supper that we needed to go for a ride so we were ready for our trip. That helped to get us out the door for even just a short 20 minute ride we otherwise would have put off.
When the conference registration materials were sent out, we discovered a fundraiser bike ride was part of our annual Central District Conference gathering. We decided to take on this additional challenge and raised over $1,000 for the 22 mile ride we added to our 2014 summer vacation plans. Our family energy and motivation were building for our trip, and this was a good match for fundraising!
The actual ride was a wonderful mix of adventure and fun, which also happened to be exercise. There was also a multitude of mosquitoes, thunder storms with severe weather warnings and illness with fever. Not all of life goes as planned. We fell short of our 100 mile ride goal, but achieved something greater, a new sense of how to be healthy together as a family.
If your health plan or work place offers wellness coaching, I hope you will consider using it this year. I wonder what new way of being in the world this might open up for you.
If you are part of The Corinthian Plan, wellness coaching is available to all adult plan participants (including adult dependents) at no additional cost. For the plan member and a covered spouse participating in the wellness incentive, you can earn a financial reward of up to $600 for your participation. This financial reward can be used to build up your health savings account, be taken as a cash incentive to spend on whatever you like or donated to the Fair Balance Fund that helps cover costs for people in the plan needing assistance.
May you experience greater health and well-being on your ride through life in 2015.
Great idea! I feel this conflict frequently!