Dump Your Plump is a fun
and effective wellness program created in 1986 by Donald Alsbro of Lake Michigan
College. Last year, this nationally successful program last year had over
3000 participants exercising five days a week with an average weight loss of
nearly eight pounds.
"The Dump Your Plump
program is good for corporations. Corporations are anxious to have their
employees more fit. The trick is getting it done. Dump Your Plump does it."
Covert Baily
Author and PBS host
We found that people
reported exercising 46% more after participating. Similarly we found that over
80% of the participants reported eating less fat."
Ann Garcia, Ph.D.
University of Michigan
Fred Wilber, of the Don’t Quit,
Be Fit team from Avery International, found a unique incentive: “I took a
picture of a Hershey’s With Almonds candy bar and pasted it right next to
the calorie counter on my treadmill at home. Each candy bar contains nearly 300
calories. You need to walk almost a half-hour to burn that many calories. I soon
found that it wasn’t worth eating that candy bar, given the amount of work it
took to burn off all those calories.”
Cindy Dunivar from Firm Forms, a
Hudson Integrated Products team, found great support from their president, Jim
Terwoord. Cindy explained, “We had a nutritionist come in eight out of the ten
weeks of the contest to answer all the questions that we had. We put a poster in
the front office for everyone to see, including visitors, which showed progress
toward the goals of everyone in the contest. He (Jim Terwoord) said he would
originally pay for anyone who met his or her weight loss and exercise goal. In
the end he paid for everyone who entered the contest,” concluded Dunivar.
Dave Davies, team captain of Oh My
Gut, from the Cleveland area OMG Company, used email and a straight forward
approach for his team’s accomplishment of a perfect score. “We’ve done the
contest in the past,” said Dave, who simply passed out weekly newsletters
and used email to encourage each member on a daily basis. “We had a weekly team
meeting but didn’t have a lot of time to talk. We exchanged a lot of email and
recipes in encouragement to get us through.”