By Brie Cohen, staff writer

The Coronary Health Improvement Project is coming to Albert Lea.

CHIP is a program that teaches participants to improve their health through lifestyle changes. These changes include not only diet and exercise but other elements such as handling emotions, resting and trust in a higher power, Dr. Stephanie Nainani, CHIP director, said.

The CHIP program believes that being healthy is by choice, not by chance, Nainani said, meaning you can turn around or prevent health problems, because not all health issues are completely caused by things such as family genes.

Nainani and other volunteers will host multiple free information sessions about the program. The information sessions last an hour and a half and involve a video featuring CHIP founder Dr. Hans Diehl and a question and answer session. After the session, people can choose to participate in the program.

The program costs $219 per person. The CHIP program starts April 18 at Seventh-day Adventist Church with a health screening that involves blood tests, weight check and a blood pressure check. The participants also get materials including two textbooks, a work book, water bottle and bag. Then, starting April 21, participants come to the church three times per week for classes that include videos, food demonstrations, discussions with area doctors and a grocery store tour.

After people in the program have been adapting the CHIP ideas into their lifestyles, they will come back for a follow-up health screening with the same tests they took before starting the program so they can see how much CHIP has helped their health.

Nainani, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Albert Lea Medical Center, said people find that they lowered their cholesterol by an average of 15 percent and lose an average of six to seven pounds.

The CHIP program was started after Diehl, who studied medicine at Loma Linda University in California, learned about the lifestyle change program at Pritikin Institute, Nainani said. He then, according to the CHIP website, conducted a four-week health program in 1988 and CHIP was born.

Nainani said she went to the same school as Diehl, Loma Linda University, and had heard of the program when she was in school and decided that it was something she would really like to do in the future. There were three main reasons she liked the program. One was because people can do it in their own home and they don&8217;t need to buy anything that they can&8217;t find in the grocery store. Secondly, it was comprehensive, offering 40 hours of instruction. Lastly, it was scientifically validated. There were changes she could see that made a difference in people&8217;s health.

It took her 10 years to get to the point to be ready to get involved, but finally last fall she went to a four-day intensive training seminar in Minneapolis to become a CHIP director.

After she earned her director stripes, she did a short program for her church at Seventh-day Adventist. Nainani said they really liked it and decided to help sponsor the program with money and space. They are also donating four, half scholarships for people in need.

Nainani said there have been more than 50,000 CHIP participants throughout the world to help reverse conditions like diabetes and heart disease. And the program is in every state except for North Dakota and South Carolina.

This is the first time CHIP has been offered in Albert Lea, and Nainani said she is hoping to offer it twice a year.