Eat healthy and exercise seem like simple enough instructions for anyone to follow—until you actually have to do it.
Telling people to live a healthy lifestyle is one thing, but showing them how to do it is the goal of doctors Richard Rayner and David White, creators of AspireFIT, a new branch of a growing practice based on practical, personal care.
Rayner and White created AspireCARE five years ago when they combined their experience in primary and urgent care services to open a new health facility. The goal was to form seamless communication between the medical provider and patients—and the idea took off.
“We started Aspire with the goal of showing people the value of preventative care as a long-term solution for treating disease and injury,” White said. “We have the desire to equip people to take ownership of their health. That’s where the name came from. We desire that our practice would inspire our patients to aspire to something better as it pertains to health.”
While working out the introductory kinks of a new business venture, Rayner and White wanted to incorporate their ideas of community fitness early on. They created Team Aspire, a weekly running and walking group that focused on training for the Harrisburg Marathon, as a way to get exercise together.
For many patients, hearing the advice to get fit and active is easier to swallow knowing that Rayner has been on the other side. Growing up obese, he decided to start running in high school as an alternative to group sports, finally taking the leap in 2002—at age 40—to enter his first marathon.
“Training and running a marathon is a bit like scaling a very high mountain in the sense that, when you first think about it, it’s completely overwhelming,” Rayner said. “But when you’ve done it, the sense of satisfaction is huge because you’ve done something that you couldn’t even get your head around.”
With Team Aspire, he dipped his toe into group fitness, while encouraging patients to practice prevention.
“When you exercise by yourself, sometimes it feels like suffering,” Rayner said. “When you exercise with community, it feels like you’re accomplishing something.”
AspireFIT grew out of that sense of community, transforming it into a more instructive, multi-faceted sense of fitness.
Don’t think of AspireFIT as a gym or the more institutional medical center because it isn’t either of those things, according to Rayner and White. Instead, it’s a high-care environment that focuses on the technology of determining someone’s body mass index and resting metabolic rate, while being very interactive, not only as a community, but through the instruction of professionals.
AspireFIT is open to anyone in the community, whether or not they are referred by their physicians. Typical programs last 12 weeks, with workouts and diet created for individuals and their unique needs.
Since launching AspireFIT on Oct. 13, Rayner and White have been intentional about making the facility feel like anything but a gym. Similar to the medical practice, it was designed with warm colors and the natural elements of wood and stone with the complement of natural light.
“Coming to AspireFIT is an investment of time, of person, of finances in an effort to pursue something that is transformation for a lifetime,” White said. “We live in a society that is prone to reach for the quick fixes with the least amount of effort. What we’re embracing is a philosophy and a lifestyle that will transform who they are.”
The concept of health as a lifestyle has been a beneficial concept for Liz Yarnell, a 62-year-old Colonial Park resident and walker with Team Aspire. As a patient at AspireCARE, Yarnell was urged to get active.
“I’m a little lazy in that I have no desire to run, and I don’t even want to walk 13 miles,” Yarnell said. “But I can walk six or seven.”
Yarnell is among six walkers who meet up with the runners of Team Aspire to participate in that community concept of exercise. Despite different fitness levels, the group motivates runners and walkers alike.
“Physically, it has done so much for me, but there really is a great social element to it,” she said. “There are a lot of commonsense things I’ve learned from participating. I’ve adjusted my diet. I look at health as not just one troublesome issue, but how I feel as a whole person.”
Misti Demko, a competitive runner who helps organize Team Aspire, said the group concept is making sure everyone belongs—whether they walk or run.
“There is a lot of work that goes on to validate people and tell them their goals are worth it,” Demko said. “That is unheard of in medicine. The whole idea that you can reach your goal, not matter what it is, and they’ll walk beside you the whole way. It’s just not something you see.”
Those who run with Team Aspire aren’t just going out on their own and reporting their progress to Rayner and White later. Often, you’ll find the two of them running alongside their patients, living out their desire for community wellness.
“My dream would be that people come to AspireFIT feeling one way and leave after 12 weeks saying, ‘I’ve never felt this way before,’” Rayner said. “I want people to feel joyful and come to a place where their bodies work the way they should.”
For more information on AspireFIT, visit www.aspirebetter.com.
