Albert Leans are at the crossroads of becoming the healthiest people in the state and also in the country, said Coronary Health Improvement Project Founder Hans Diehl and Albert Lea Medical Center physician Stephanie Nainani on Saturday at the first-ever Healthy by Choice conference.

But it is up to people individually to make that happen, they said.

Speaking to a full-house crowd at the Marion Ross Performing Arts Center, Nainani, an obstetrician, explained how a series of events played out to bring her to Albert Lea, to introduce her to Diehl, to become the facilitator for the local CHIP program and most recently to get her involved with the City Health Makeover being done by Blue Zones and AARP.

All of these events revolve around the health of the people of Albert Lea, she said, and they did not just happen by coincidence.

About a year ago, CHIP began in Albert Lea, and so far there have been 47 people who have been through the program, she said.

CHIP, a five-week intensive course that teaches improved health through lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise, rest and faith, emphasizes that being healthy is by choice and not by chance.

The people in the class have things such as their blood pressure, cholesterol and weight tested at the beginning of the program and then again at the end. There’s been an average drop in cholesterol of 20 points and people have on average dropped 10 pounds, to name a few, she said.

“But overall, these people feel better, and that’s what we’re going for,” Nainani said.

During the course, the participants are presented with loads of health information, but ultimately it the decision of the participants to choose to implement all or pieces of that information into their lives.

“This program is one part of that whole interwoven web of helping Albert Leans take control,” she said.

It’s part of helping Albert Leans develop personal lifestyles so that they not only live longer lives but better lives, too, she said.

Diehl, who is a clinical professor of preventative medicine at Loma Linda University, in Loma Linda, Calif., shared a story of a Canadian couple in their late 60s who had been through one of his CHIPs back in the late 1980s.

At the beginning of the program, Diehl explained, the husband would drive 300 feet just to answer his mailbox every day and the wife struggled with depression and was obesity.

The couple went through the course, decided to implement many of the skills taught to them, and came out new people, he said.

The husband began to walk and eventually got bored of that and took up bicycling.

He bicycled through the Rocky Mountains but ended up getting bored of that, too.

In the end, he ended up riding his bike 3,000 miles across Canada in 60 days.

“He had come in as a cripple and come out as a champion in teaching people,” Diehl said.

The wife got a piano, began losing weight and slipped out of the depression.

“The CHIP program is a program of choice,” Diehl said. “You have to be ready for it. You have to sense a need.”

He said he thinks the United States is in the middle of a health care crisis and he doesn’t think that crisis will be solved by developing more coverage for people.

“What we need to do is put health in the health care formula,” he said.

There is great power in giving people the skills to implement a healthy lifestyle and then letting them make changes on their own terms, he said.

Nainani said she hopes the Healthy by Choice Conference becomes a yearly event.

Diehl gave several other presentations during the two-day conference.