My journey to better health

Editor's note: Last week, Times News reporter Judy Dolgos-Kramer shared her first steps toward a healthier lifestyle. Her story continues this week, as she shares her first experience with Pocono Medical Center's "Biggest Winner Challenge."

After undergoing a battery of tests and passing them with flying colors, only to be given a diagnosis that I was "overweight," weight loss might seem like it was my main goal in participating in the "Biggest Winner Challenge," but it wasn't.

For me, it's about my health.

The "Biggest Winner" is a program exclusive to the Pocono Medical Center's Healthy Living Series and is the brainchild of Dr. Musa Tangoren. It began in late July and ran through January. As part of the experience, I agreed to journal my day-to-day progress.

Humiliation

Humiliation was the title of my first journal entry. That is exactly what I felt when I attended my first "Biggest Winner" meeting.

I walked into the room at the Abeloff Center at East Stroudsburg University on a Tuesday night in July. I'd already missed the first meeting, but Kristi Whitby, public affairs coordinator for the medical center, greeted me and took me through the steps to get up to speed with the other attendees.

The place was packed. There were at least 250 people of all shapes and sizes waiting patiently in line to be weighed.

One of the rules I set for this challenge was that I didn't want to know my starting weight. I needed to remember why I am doing this, and that is to get healthy. The weight loss is the icing on the cake, or rather the fat-free half-n-half in my coffee.

Every person I worked with was wonderful, but that didn't change the fact that a stranger had just taken my picture while I was holding a sign with my weight on it. I fought the urge to crawl under a rock and took my seat.

Over the next two hours I was given a lot of good information about food, exercise and healthy lifestyle in general. But what I took away more than anything else was that Dr. Tangoren, a board certified anesthesiologist from Pocono Medical Center, cared. He not only cared, he inspired.

This funny, quirky, colorful and at times, very serious man and his staff wanted to make a difference in my life, as well as every person in that auditorium and if possible, everyone that they might come into contact with at any time and at any place.

Tangoren's group has a private Facebook page where members of the group can share information and encourage each other. He also sends out inspirational emails to those enrolled in the program.

"These inspirational messages are not some quotes I picked up off the Internet," Tangoren said. "These are real-life messages, either from my own life or something that has been shared with me."

At times the messages are something as simple as what to do if you are in the middle of shopping and suddenly you find yourself hungry. Other times it might be just a word or two of encouragement.

One of Tangoren's bits of wisdom is: "Think, then drink. Meat, then eat."

It's actually a very simple approach to eating.

"If you first think about what you are about to do, you think about the meal, the preparation and the ingredients," said Tangoren. "Then you drink. Drink a big glass of water. You stretch out your stomach and have a bit less room. Then you eat your protein before you eat your carbs. The protein sends messages to your brain that you are full sooner than the carbs and vegetables do."

Sometimes I would see or hear something that really stuck with me during the program sessions. One graphic that really hit home was a simple photo of 400 calories of fast food compared with 400 calories of a salad.

Big difference.

Then you were asked to think about how long it takes to eat the fast food burger versus how long it's going to take you to chow down on that salad.

Huge difference.

How the program began

Tangoren is an anesthesiologist at what is now Lehigh Valley Health at Pocono. He has always had an interest in health and fitness, and one of the nurses asked him to help her to lose some weight.

When others saw how well she did, they too began to come to him for assistance. Eventually he approached the hospital administration with a plan to start a group in the hospital for employees.

The group was successful, and when he asked to run the program as part of the Healthy Living Series, he got the green light. Now after four sessions the program is clearly a success.

According to Tangoren, participants have lost an average of 35 pounds. The highest weight loss is 70 pounds. Many of those who succeed sign up to come back for a second round.

Healthy eating is not the only gospel Tangoren preaches. He is a body builder and spends much of his free time working out and helping others in the gym.

On two Saturdays during the course of the challenge, Tangoren's friends at Retro Fitness in Stroudsburg opened the gym to him to take participants around and teach them how to best use the facility to aid them in their journey to better health.

Tangoren will be reprising his "Biggest Winner Challenge" again on March 28, and I would encourage anyone who is looking for inspiration to take on a new attitude toward their health to sign up and attend the meetings.

There is a small, one-time fee for the program of $20 per person.

Tangoren loves to give gifts out to the participants, and at the end of every meeting a few people in attendance walked out with salad spinners, vegetable spiralizers, Dr. T's favorite water bottles and Fitbits.

At the end of the full program, he and his staff award iPads to those who have lost the most weight personally and as a team.

In the most recent group, Tangoren also included a teen group.

"My experience has been that when people work together with a partner or in a support group, they tend to do even better," said Tangoren. "If you find yourself really hungry in the middle of the night, you can talk to someone who really understands exactly how you are feeling and can help you through it."

Judy Dolgos-Kramer's journey continues on next Tuesday's Health page as she shares how she completed the "Biggest Winner" challenge.