HJBR Jan/Feb 2022

TRANSFORMATION 28 JAN / FEB 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   Dianne Hartley, Editor Thank you for your time, Mr. Fontenot. Looking forward to exploring what optimal health looks like to you and how we, as individuals and healthcare leaders, can better realize optimal health in our lives. Ready to jump in? Jerry Fontenot Thank you, Dianne, for the opportunity to share some of the wisdom that I have collected through the years from my mentors, teachers and/or coaches. This feels similar to standing at the 50-yard line for the proverbial coin toss — ready or not, here we go! Editor How would you define optimal health? Jerry Fontenot’s journey to health and fitness stems from his vast experience in training for and playing 16 seasons in the NFL. Since his playing days, he coached 10 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, accumulating a wealth of knowledge on the latest trends and science of maximizing production on the field. After leaving Green Bay, Fontenot’s personal search has continued, driven by an insatiable appetite for the latest and most effective information, techniques and research for optimal health. Fontenot proved to be extremely durable as a player, playing 239 NFL games as a center with the Bears, Saints and Bengals from 1989-2004. Originally a third-round draft choice by Chicago in 1989, Fontenot began a starting streak of 106 games in 1991 with the Bears that continued through his first one-plus seasons with the Saints, whom he joined in 1997 as an unrestricted free agent. That streak ended with a season-ending knee injury in October 1998. Returning at the start of the 1999 season, Fontenot then started 80 consecutive games for the Saints through the end of the 2003 season before finishing his career with the Bengals in 2004. Fontenot was named a USA Today All-Joe Team selection in 2002 for his excellence without fanfare and his enduring leadership qualities. In all, Fontenot played on four playoff teams, three with the Bears (1990, 1991, 1994) and one with the Saints (2000). He spent his first year out of football in 2005 working in broadcasting in the Chicago area, handling various football assignments with both WGN and ESPN, before deciding to give coaching a try. Not far removed from his playing days, Fontenot quickly showed he could relate well to players, joining the Packers in the summer of 2006 as a coaching intern and remaining with the team that season as an offensive assistant, working with the offensive line. He was promoted to assistant offensive line coach by Mike McCarthy Jan. 15, 2007, and spent the next four seasons in that role, including the Packers’ Super Bowl XLV championship. Fontenot received his first position group appointment Feb. 25, 2011, when McCarthy placed him in command of the team’s running backs before being assigned to the tight ends. A standout at Texas A&M and a sociology major, Fontenot played every position on the offensive line in college and helped lead the Aggies to three consecutive Southwest Conference titles from 1985 through 1987. He earned all-conference honors three times and twice earning honorable mention All-American. Born Nov. 21, 1966, in Lafayette, Louisiana, Fontenot was a four-sport star at Lafayette High School, earning all-state honors twice in football, finishing as state runner-up twice in the discus, and winning a state championship in baseball. Fontenot First, let’s break down what is the widely accepted definition for “health”from The World Health Organization (WHO): “Health is a state of complete mental, phys- ical and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Bear- ing this in mind, I might add that there are no guarantees for good health, even if I am living in a manner that might optimize the opportunity for well-being in these three areas. Many genetic and environmental fac- tors might sabotage our greatest efforts to experience healthy living; however, there can be solutions for some of these condi- tions as well. In defining what optimal health is to me, I would say that it involves taking measures to ensure that I use whatever means necessary to maximize my condi- tions for daily living, contingent on what my life’s goals are. I think it’s important to note that, at this stage of my life, my goals have changed quite a bit from days gone by. While I lived in the world of professional football, I thought that the model of health looked like 300 pounds of lean, mean, fight- ing machine! While that served me well in my career choice — actually, my career may have chosen me — I was not paying much attention to what my nutrition looked like, except to say that I ate everything in sight! In addition, my workouts and training regimes were designed to obtain as much size, strength and speed that my frame could handle and not primarily focused on my overall health, all influenced by my life