Navigating the Journey to Wellness: How the Intesive Lifestyle Program Made the Difference Register for ILP Navigating the Journey to Wellness: How the Intesive Lifestyle Program Made the Difference Register for ILP
Jul 27, 2026
Meet Tracey.
Putting Herself First “I was at a healthy weight around the age of 40,” said Tracey Haun, a nursing manager at University of Utah Health. “And then over the next ten years, I put on about 10 pounds a year. Life just got so busy. I was working full-time as a women’s health nurse, my husband and I were raising four kids, and I just put myself last.”
In her early 50s, Haun knew it was time to put herself and her personal wellness first. “I knew I had to do something, but it was hard for me to find the motivation to go back to counting calories,” Haun said. “Emotionally and mentally, it is a lot.”
She wanted to approach weight loss in a different way and, in the process, discovered the Intensive Lifestyle Program (ILP) through the Osher Center for Integrative Health (OCIH) at U of U Health.
“My focus in the program was wellness training,” said Catie Yonto, a clinical physiologist on the preventive cardiology care team at U of U Health and a former PEAK graduate student with OCIH. “I introduced various topics of wellness and provided a space for people to gather and discuss them.” Before Yonto received her graduate degree in 2024, she facilitated the 10-week course Haun participated in through the ILP.
Yonto described the ILP as unique for both its approach to wellness and for those who participate in the program. “We had a wide range of ages and a variety of reasons why people were there,” Yonto said. “Maybe the simplest way to describe the participants are people curious about wellness.”
Tracey Haun on the trail, enjoying the outdoors.
Over the years, the wellness movement has raised awareness about some of the shortcomings of “sick care,” which emphasizes diagnosis and treatment of illness and injuries. As a long-time nurse, Haun routinely used this traditional approach to care. However, she wanted to be more proactive about improving her self-care.
Haun appreciated the ILP approach to helping her achieve wellness goals. “I loved that every week in the ILP was a different focus,” she said. “It wasn’t just about counting calories; it was being able to take the information in bite-size pieces, one week at a time.”
Looking at the Whole Person “The first class is my favorite class because that is where we introduce the wellness wheel,” Yonto said. “It breaks down wellness into eight different dimensions of health and wellness.” The wheel works like a snapshot of a person’s current life balance. It helps users to examine the physical (health/sleep), emotional (stress management), intellectual (creativity/curiosity), environmental (surroundings), social (relationships), spiritual (values), and financial (work satisfaction/financial stability) dimensions of their lives.
“I thought one of my primary responsibilities in the ILP was to provide a consistent kind space where people feel brave enough to be vulnerable,” Yonto said. Students would often “share their successes and share their pitfalls,” Yonto added, “and they are just brave enough to share weird things that happened to them along the journey. My favorite parts of it were when I would be silent for 10–15 minutes and the participants would keep the conversation flowing on their own.”
Yonto admitted that it was not always easy to talk openly about the issues that might be creating imbalance in a person’s wellness wheel. But she aimed to make these discussions comfortable, and Haun said her leadership paid off.
“The sessions would always start with, ‘How did it go this past week, and what was your experience applying the principles from the last week?’” Haun recalled. “So, we were able to talk about whether something was hard, and it was certainly nice to know you have got that accountability conversation each week. No pressure at all, it was very supportive.”
Those wellness discussions and sessions paid off for Haun in numerous ways. She believes they helped her to make better portion and nutrition choices. She now focuses on making sure half of her meal plates are filled with fruits and vegetables. And despite the personal and professional demands she juggles daily, Haun has found time to add weight training to her exercise plan and prioritize sleep.
“We are so hard on ourselves in our head sometimes,” Yonto said. “So, I think talking to other people about what you have done well is powerful. The wellness wheel can be really powerful when it triggers that shift in your mind where you accept things are not so bad and overwhelming.”
Progress, Not Perfection “In this program, just picking up good habits and not always focusing on the bad habits I had picked up, has been freeing,” Haun said. “Catie Yonto, our facilitator, went through the journey with us and was so supportive. She talked about her own attempts to follow and set new habits and that she wasn’t perfect. Yonto told us, ‘There is never an expectation of perfection, just steps toward improvement will help.’”
Haun took the most difficult steps in her journey on her own before she added in medication to reach her wellness goals. It was a successful example of the way the ILP weaves primary care in with the wellness classes.
“Weight loss medication was critical for me to just get that extra willpower and quiet my cravings,” Haun said. “I had already lost about 15–20 pounds on my own going through the class and making the changes, not necessarily counting calories. I don’t know if I would have gotten to where I am without that help. I don’t think the weight loss medication would have been as effective without me making the changes.”
Tracey Haun and her husband find adventure on the trail.
A More Enjoyable Life Haun has been within five pounds of her goal weight for over a year now, and she said that life is more enjoyable at a healthy weight. “I have more energy, and I feel like mentally I have more clarity,” she said. “Whether it be chasing around after my granddaughter, learning to ski, or climbing Mt. Timpanogos and not being sore the next day, it’s all very freeing.”
In Haun and Yonto’s experience, the ILP offers both participants and facilitators an opportunity to build an overall lifestyle balance that focuses long-term on physical, mental, and emotional health and wellness.
Sandy Olney Jul 27, 2026 10:39 AM
wellness
