Elevator? What Elevator?

HHSA Administrative Analysts Monya Tabor and Joe Garcia tackle the stairs at their Mission Valley office building. Inspired by the County's Dare to Stair program, they started squeezing the extra activity into their days during breaks and lunch.

Monya Tabor doesn’t sit much.

The HHSA administrative analyst rises at 5:30 a.m. every morning to exercise before work. She stands while she works during the day, using an adjustable desk.

During breaks, she takes on the stairs in her building, the Behavioral Health Services Administration building in Mission Valley. She walks 106 steps here, 111 steps there, easily walking a few hundred a day. She even uses a restroom on another floor to fit in more stairs.

Tabor added the extra stair climbing to her daily routine a few months ago as part of the County’s Dare to Stair exercise program. In January, the program started encouraging employees to take advantage of the accessible, free activity. It worked. Hundreds of employees signed up, logging a total of 4.1 million stairs. The average participant completed more than 10,800 stairs. Depending on how many stairs they walked, employees earned prizes such as T-shirts, jump ropes and gym bags.

Tabor started counting the number of stairs in each stairwell in her building, so she could easily calculate her daily totals and then submit them to the Department of Human Resources. She and co-worker Joe Garcia, also a Behavioral Health Services administrative analyst who sits nearby, started pushing and encouraging each other. Garcia  started incorporating more stairs into his daily routine, and when either returned from walking stairs in the building, they would mention it.

“She’ll say, I did my stairs,” he said. Then he would go tackle the staircase.

They haven’t stopped since the program ended last month.

Tabor said her wellness journey began five years ago after her grandmother died of complications from several conditions, including heart disease. Many of her family members have suffered heart attacks as well. A year ago, Tabor really stepped up her efforts to get healthy after being diagnosed with high cholesterol. Her doctor told her that if she “didn’t fix it, he would put (her) on medications,” she said. She wanted to avoid that.

So Tabor started eating healthier, exercising more and tracking both through the website myfitnesspal.com. As a result, she’s dropped her cholesterol by 26 points into a healthy range.  She cut her asthma medication by half.  

She’s also lost nearly 40 lbs. and plans to lose at least another 40 lbs. But she calls the weight loss the “icing on the cake.”

Her main goals were to get healthy and prevent long term illnesses like heart disease.

Another huge benefit, she said, has been the improvement in her moods and anxiety levels.

Tabor said she often used to feel stressed, worried and anxious.

Now, “I am a happy, upbeat, optimistic person, expecting that the best always happens even if it is eventually,” she said.

Though Garcia has long been into health and wellness---he practices yoga and rides his bike to work— adding more stairs to his daily routine has helped him keep limber during the work days.

“I notice that if I sit at my desk, I get really stiff,” he said. Walking stairs during breaks “doesn’t let me get as tightened up.”

For more information about health and wellness at the County, visit InSite’s Employee Wellness Program web page.