Conner Benefits Lifestyle Team

From left to right: Rachel Conner, Tom Conner, Jake Lucas,

Megan Risinger, Annie Conner

Thank you so much for visiting our new Lifestyle blog! We wanted to start 2009 off by introducing you to our Lifestyle team at Conner Benefits. I'm sure you'll see that our personal struggles with staying active and eating right are very similar to your own.



Megan Risinger:
I have been involved in sports as long as I can remember. I participated in basketball, soccer, and track throughout high school. When I went to Purdue University, I decided not to play basketball and just to participate in intramural basketball, soccer, flag football, and workout at the co-rec throughout all 4 years. I missed not having sports take up a majority of my life. Intramurals are more laid back (I am a competitive person!) and games aren’t as frequent as they had been in my earlier years. Today, I still try to get to the gym often and play basketball. Being active makes me feel good on all spectrums - from the physical aspect to the mental. By coordinating the Lifestyle Program at Conner, I've been able to be a part of the exercise and sports world again. I get to see everything vendors offer on top of all the other opportunities out there (whether that is physical activities or just learning more about health and wellness). I look forward to watching our program grow while helping myself and others get healthier!

Annie Conner:
One of my biggest struggles when it comes to healthy living is nutrition. The last thing I want to do when I get home from work is spend two hours cooking, so I often eat things that are fast but lack proper nutrition (a.k.a. a bowl of Cheerios). My goal for 2009 is to find quick, easy, inexpensive, and most important, HEALTHY meals that I can fix in order to change my eating habits. In the summer, I love to bike, wakeboard, rollerblade, run (only for a little bit!) and go for walks with my dog, but the winter is challenging to find effective exercise routines since it’s too cold to be outside and I don’t really enjoy being trapped in a gym. I also have no desire to REALLY push myself as I did in high school and college when it comes to exercise. This often doesn’t provide the results that I’m wanting to see…obviously. No pain, no gain, right?! This year I want to strive to increase the intensity of my workouts in order to maximize the time and effort I spend working out. I co-designed and coordinated our Lifestyle Program here at Conner with Megan. I look forward to helping companies in the Indianapolis area get back on track while I do the same.

Rachel Conner:
I played soccer and tennis in high school so fitness became an expected part of my daily schedule that I really never had to think about. I practically lived off of fast food and never gained a pound. Then I went to Indiana University and lost that fitness schedule but I didn’t lose my appetite. I basically ate and slept for 4 straight years and the 20 pounds I gained my freshman year proved that. I was no longer considered the “fit” one in my group of friends and I began noticing that when I was no longer receiving compliments. I didn’t feel good about myself anymore. I knew getting fit again would make me feel better – both physically and mentally. I started watching what I ate and picked up running about 6 months out of school. I was right – I gained more energy and a boost in self-confidence. Here at Conner Benefits I’ll be blogging on my struggles to maintain a healthy lifestyle, which will include posting helpful info from experts on fitness and nutrition, as well as promoting our new lifestyle program through sales and marketing.

Tom Conner:
Hi I’m the VP at Conner Benefits. I am 54 yrs old and about 2 ½ yrs ago I was diagnosed with a compressed disk in my neck. While I was going from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what to do, I would go home every night from work and eat dinner and then lay in my bed for the rest of the night. So, being 5’10”, I quickly gained weight and reached my all time high of 180 pounds. I have always been in decent shape because before my wife and I had kids I would run 5 to 6 miles almost every day. So putting on 10 pounds because of a medical problem really bothered me and at times I suffered from depression. Once I started seeing my chiropractor and I started feeling better, I decided to do something about my weight. First, I cut out all bread and soda for 90 days (I used to drink 6 cokes a day). To this day I still do not drink soda.
I then started to walk in my neighborhood every other day for 2 miles. In 90 days I lost 15 pounds due to simply changing my lifestyle from sedentary to active and by making certain diet changes. Like Rachel, I’ll be marketing and selling our new Lifestyle program to different companies throughout the Indianapolis area.

Jake Lucas:
YUP – IT TOOK TV TO WAKE ME UP – Part 1

Strangely enough, college years were the most fit I had ever been. My story after college however, may be familiar to several young dads. The excuse “work time is getting in the way of gym time,” really didn’t seem as acceptable as when it was “class time”. While time spent with my growing family and at the office was increasing, time working out slowly decreased. Imagine that! Yet, even with all my time being devoted to everything unrelated to being healthy, I’m still living as though my metabolism is stuck in the college years. It took a few things to happen before that really sunk in. Here’s a short list:

- When attempting to jog, I had to stop at the end of my driveway to catch my breath (it’s only 20 yards)
- When taking a walk, I had to stop at the end of my neighbor’s driveway to catch my breath (only another 30 yards)
- I only went on a walk if we planned to stop at Handle’s Ice Cream
- The word “diet” became an acronym for Double – It – Every – Time
- I got excited to finish off what my son didn’t eat at dinner
- Then I would wait anxiously to finish off my other son’s plate
- And my wife’s plate
- After I already had seconds
- I developed the Fit-In-This rule: Don’t worry about Fitness, as long as I “Fit-In-this”
- When 5 hours of TV after work wasn’t enough, I had to set up the DVR so I wouldn’t miss other shows while watching my “preferred shows”

Of all those things, one finally made an impact … TV. That’s right, who ever said watching too much TV is unhealthy … well, they probably are correct, which is why it’s ironic that watching TV may just save my life. Stay tuned for my next blog which will explain how that’s true. On top of blogging about my personal struggles with fitness and nutrition, I’ll also be working with Megan and Annie to help fine tune our Lifestyle program over time.