Spotlights
Steven de Polo
Steven de Polo is a family man with three daughters, two of which, Qiqi and Lourdie, still live with him and his wife, Caroline. Steven strives to spend as much time with his family being active as he can because he wants to teach his daughters to be strong and tough. It’s become increasingly important to Steven to stay healthy as both he and his wife have had bouts with cancer, and they want to stay healthy for each other, as well as their daughters. Steven makes sure his girls are involved in physical activities by participating in fun runs, such as the Eat Dirt Mud Run, the Color Run, and the Zombie Run, and other events as a family. His daughters are both involved in their own sports, as well, like Soccer and Aerial Gymnastics.
With his time consuming job as Director of Foundation Giving for Grand Valley and the time he puts into his family, Steven uses exercise as his way to “stay strong” in the stress. He has an at-home gym and alternates between weight lifting and running each week, in addition to his regular exercise. He says that his family supports him by giving him the time he needs to get his solo exercise. Steven also realizes that exercise can be used as a relationship builder. Three times a week, he and Caroline go on a walk after the girls have gone to bed.
“It’s good for health and for our relationship.”
Steven uses aps on his phone and a Polar Loop activity tracker wrist band to stay on top of his activity and to make sure that his exercises are of good quality. These technologies help him to remember to stay active every day. Because Steven has Asthma, he finds it the most difficult to keep up his exercise in the winter and allergy seasons. Even so, he comes up with alternative methods to get around this obstacle, like using his exercise bike indoors. He uses family to motivate him during these times, as well, and during the winter, they go cross country skiing every Sunday. Steven also finds motivation in the way that exercise makes him feel.
“Exercising allows me to have a lot of energy at work.”
Steven is grateful for the resources that GVSU has to offer, such as the Winter Hall facility, Know Your Numbers Program, and the Priority Health Coach. He found the Health Coach particularly valuable because of the interest that the coaches took in his health and achieving his goals.
The most motivation that Steven gets to stay healthy, though, comes from his love of bettering himself. Running helps strengthen his lungs, which helps take the edge off his Asthma, and “5ks aren’t that expensive.” He jokes that buying weights and exercise equipment now is a lot cheaper than physical therapy down the road.
“Don’t wait until you’re forty to be healthy.”
Right now Steven is preparing for the Warrior Dash, a mud run, obstacle course race that he cracked a rib in three years ago. He uses the Dash as a way to measure his physical health and challenge himself. Although, you may not want to try the Warrior Dash right off the bat, it’s important to stay healthy at every age – take advantage of the supportive people around you and help each other to get active!
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