Family health issues can be impetus to get healthy

Health & Fitness story for The Commercial Appeal

July 16, 2012

Ken Hall took his mother to the hospital last year for complications from congestive heart failure and kidney issues on the same day. While there, she was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease his father had already been diagnosed with. “It occurred to me that my dad’s taking insulin shots twice a day, now she’s going to have to start, I’m next,” Hall said. “It’s like a time bomb.”

As a proactive measure at the beginning of the year, Hall, director of communications for Leadership Memphis, set out to lose 20 pounds by his 50th birthday in February. His mission was accomplished by cutting out his almost daily fast-food drive-through habit and saying “no” to the Hostess cupcakes. As far as any previous exercise routine, Hall said, he “really tried to avoid it.” But with his new lifestyle came new habits, and working out on the elliptical machine for a half-hour every day was one.

“It was pretty darn easy,” he said of entering this regimen and his subsequent weight loss.

For 40-year-old Heather Griffin, the hardest part of her lifestyle change was cutting out sweets. “I’m a cupcake freak,” she laughs, “so in giving that up, that was more painful than running a half-marathon, actually.” … (read more)