This month a group of 22 people have gathered to compete in a team contest called Thinner Winner at Body Kinetics Health Club and Spa to make the changes necessary to lose weight and create a vibrantly healthy life. This is a contest where every BODY wins who truly participates, and the team with the highest fat loss wins $1,000 cash prize.

The Fabulous Fit Five is a Thinner Winner team of four women and one teen from the Gilead House, a transitional home in Novato for mothers in need. They have a daunting goal: 510 pounds among the five of them. They are determined to transform their lives through exercise, healthy eating and self-development.

They are led by Gilead mentor Cinda Weisgerber, who has already lost an inspiring 150 pounds and is determined to lose 50 more to reach her optimum weight. She is leading her team through the personal challenges she knows all too well.

To lose weight and create a vibrant healthy life requires more than diet and exercise. It calls for courage and a willingness to look into what is holding you back so you can move into a new way of being. 

It Takes a Village … Novato

Body Kinetics, the host of the Thinner Winner contest and supporter of the Gilead House, is sponsoring this team of women. The contest gives the Fabulous Fit Five team access to the tools for their success.

When the employees at Old Navy learned of the Gilead team's goals, they personally pooled their funds and purchased women's exercise clothes so the Thinner Winner team could work out.

A local Mary Kay representative donated skin-care education and products to the Gilead team to assist them in their self-care.

This Saturday the educational program, "Our Emotional Hungers" with guest speaker/author Billy Sunday Mars, will support the Thinner Winner teams. There will be information on how we compensate for lack of fulfillment with self-sabotaging substitutes such as emotional eating, drinking, substance abuse and spending. This program is on Saturday, Jan. 28 at noon and is open to the public with $15 admission.

Also partnering with the Thinner Winner contest, Whole Foods Novato is providing healthy recipes and information.

In February, Novato Public Access TV will be airing Bonnie Neer's Healthy Cooking Show, created for the Thinner Winners and available to the public with your health in mind.

A Healthy Vibrant Life

Yes, our food choices are important.

Yes, we need to exercise.

Yes, we need to develop discipline.

But this discipline needs to include the practice of enjoying our food, experiencing the mood shift when we get our bodies moving and listening to our feelings so that we can create a life we are happy to be living.

Novato, let's follow and support the Thinner Winner teams and their courage to change their lives for the better!

Thank you to all who have helped with the process.