Curves Chicks perch at top of Meltdown

Some might say the Curves Chicks have a slight advantage. After all, as Curves members, they DO work out regularly at the women’s health club.
But other groups are working out regularly, too. So what makes these women the number one Meltdown team?
“Our team members,” said Renee LaRue, one of nine women who have lost a collective 100 pounds since the Meltdown began.
“It’s good that we’re doing it together, because if one doesn’t feel like going (to exercise), the others make her,” laughed Honey Whitcomb, another team member.
“We come to Curves at lest three times a week and we’ve been walking one or two breaks a day.” Whitcomb said. She and LaRue both work at the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, and walk around Iola’s square. Twice around the square’s perimeter equals a mile.
“We do at least a mile a day or two, if we can get both breaks in,” Whitcomb said.
Working out together keeps the women on task.
“When the Meltdown group comes in they know they’ll be held accountable,” said Curves owner and team member Cindy Hesse.
Each womoan gets a weekly weigh in and a monthly print out of her weight and inches lost. In addition, they take part in talk therapy to relieve the stress in their lives, said Hesse.
“It’s definitely stress release,” said Whitcomb. “Just being able to take 20 minutes to get away from the office and the phone calls. Your personal life can be stressful, too.”
“We take it out on the machines,” LaRue laughed.
“Cindy is great at getting us motivated,” Whitcomb said. “Especially since she’s going through the same thing herself trying to lose weight.”
Hesse admitted that’s true.
“Nine years ago we had a two-story house,” Hesse said. “I couldn’t go up and down the stairs anymore,” due to her weight and subsequent strain on her knees, she said. “We had to move to a single story home.”
Since beginning her own weight management program in January, Hesse said “I’ve lost so much weight I’ve been able to add walking to my routine. I walk 2 1/2 miles now,” she said.

“IT’S SO much easier to work out here, for a woman, than to go to a (coed) fitness club,” said Shirley Shaw. “It’s friendly.”
In fact, that friendliness is what got Shaw to join the Meltdown.
“I got diagnosed with diabetes this winter so I joined Curves,” Shaw said. As sole caregiver for her elderly mother, Shaw realized she had to start focussing on her own health. “I had to take care of me, so I would be here to take care of her,” she said. Everyone was so welcoming at Curves, she said, that “since I was losing weight already I decided to join the Meltdown team.”
“I’m not one who is able to follow a diet, so the exercise is good,” LaRue said of her reason for joining the Meltdown team.
The Curves rotation, 30 seconds each on 14 different machines interspersed with 90 second cardio rest periods, builds muscle, Hesse said. “And muscle burns calories.”
The whole workout is designed to be completed in 30 minutes. Plus, said LaRue, “you aren’t sore afterward” and “you don’t get sweaty.”
“That was one of my biggest concerns,” Whitcomb said. “Because I live 30 minutes away and I have to get my son from day care after work.”

THE WOMEN credit both the exercise and a meal plan espoused by Curves for their weight loss.
The meal plan is three-phased, said Hesse’s daughter Rhiannon, who works as a manager at Curves.
The first phase is high protein, low calorie, she said. The next phase increases calorie counts to 1,500 calories a day.
“You keep losing weight while working out,” the younger Hesse said.
That’s followed by a third phase, 2,000 calories a day “until you gain three pounds,” she said. Then you start the whole cycle again.
Cindy Hesse explained it’s not a continuous diet.
“You follow the plan for 30 days then you are off it for two to four weeks,” she said.
That slow go seems to avoid the pitfall of most dieters: sudden rebound into former eating habits.
“It’s not a diet plan,” said Hesse. “It just teaches you how to eat healthy” she said.
The meal plan teaches nutritional eating habits and offers low-calorie recipes. And it seems to work.
“We’re just making better food choices,” said LaRue.
It’s worked for Hesse, too.
“I’ve basically lost 35 pounds in 8 weeks over the course of four months,” she said.
The weight management class is open to all Meltdowners, Hesse said. The next classes are at 6 p.m June 4 and 11 a.m. June 6. It is free.
Hesse is also offering a membership special at Curves for Meltdowners. “If they join they don’t pay any sign up fee,” she said.

HESSE AND her team are serious about losing weight.
“Just having a place you can go to and get motivated” helps, Whitcomb said. Shaw repeated Curves motivational slogan: “I’m worth 30 minutes of my own time.” All the women agree with it.
They have been at the top of the Meltdown “loser list” all but one week since the county-wide program began. For most of the nine, it’s personal. For Hesse, there’s something more.
“I’m so glad to be able to participate in something that is going to bring g health to people,” she said.