PruHealth Vitality Experience - month 1 feedback thread with WEEKLY prizes for non participants.....

[AnnMumsnet]

You may recall we have recruited 10 willing volunteers to take part in the Mumsnet PruHealth Vitality Experience - this is running until mid March. This is the feedback thread for the participants to share their feedback with you all.

As PruHealth are so very keen for as many MNers as possible to experience the benefits offered by their Vitality programme each week there will be an incentive (see below for chance to win a £50 Nectar card) offered to non participants to read how the volunteers are getting on and to share your own tips, experiences and opinions. Bookmark this thread and keep an eye out for updates across the next few weeks....

PruHealth say "We believe the more you look after yourself, the healthier you feel. That's why we offer our customers Vitality when they buy our health insurance. Vitality is the world's largest incentive-based wellness programme and can make getting and staying healthy both easier and cheaper, but also reward you for all of your hard work!"

The Vitality Experience kicked off in style at PruHealth HQ in London on Friday 17th January. Here participants were given everything they need for the experience - including a Vitality Healthcheck, advice on healthy eating from a qualified nutritionist and an exercise plan designed by a personal trainer.

Each week participants will be presented with a new Vitality benefit - from earning additional Nectar points when you buy healthy foods at Sainsbury's, taking advantage of discounts at Virgin Active or treating the family to a trip to the cinema! Vitality aims to make healthy living fun, easy and rewarding.

Here's the full schedule of the Vitality Experience:

Week 1 - Get Gyming - Kick start your January resolutions with a free 2-month pass to a Virgin Active gym and £50 to spend on new gym gear at Sweatshop.
Week 2 - 5-a-Day - Get £50 worth of Nectar points to spend on healthy food choices at Sainsbury's.
Week 3 - Step It Up - Get motivated to increase your daily step count with your new FitBug pedometer.
Week 4 - Family Treat - Take the family out on a trip to the cinema with £40 worth of vouchers to either Cineworld or Vue cinemas.
Week 5 - Half-Term & Half-Time - Check in with your personal trainer for a free 1hr session to boost your gym routine.
Week 6 - Discounts Dispensed - Get £25 worth of vouchers to test drive our up to 50% cashback at Lloyds Pharmacy benefit.
Week 7 - Choose Your Reward - Take your pick between discounts to Merlin attractions, National Trust parks or travel with Eurostar, Mark Warner or Mr & Mrs Smith getaways.
Week 8 - Wrap Up - Finish the Vitality Experience with a day of pampering at Champney's spa.

Week 1 - Get Gyming
Vitality Experience Participants: please share on this thread:
How you found the welcome day - what did you enjoy, what worried you, how did you find meeting other MNers? Why did you want to take part? Pick three words to sum up the day.

Please share how you're getting on with the gym: have you been before? What did your family think / say? What did you buy with your Sweatshop voucher? How did you feel the next day? Do you think it's given you the push to start going regularly? How do you fit it into your schedule?

Non Participants - gyms and you - discuss!
Now that we're in the middle of January, how are your resolutions for a fitter 2014? Share your stories and thoughts about gyming and you and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £50 pre-loaded Nectar card (prize draw Monday 27th at 9am) NOW CLOSED

Week 2: - is all about healthy food choices (w/c 27-1). PruHealth with Vitality members can earn five times the amount of Nectar points they normally would by buying certain foods. As well they earn 1 Vitality point for each £2 is spent on healthy foods once they have linked their nectar card to their account.

Vitality Experience Participants - please share on this thread: At the welcome day you had a presentation from Sally Nash, the nutritionist with EnergiseYou -

~ What would you say was the key message you took away from her presentation and what did you learn?
~ What healthy foods have found their way into your trolley since then and what are you planning to buy this week with your Nectar card?
~ How's the rest of the programme going - we'd love to hear what you've done!

Non Participants - what's your best tip for including your 5-a-day in family meals? NOW CLOSED
~ Share your best tips for getting the 5-a-day into family meals or share a fruit or veg packed recipe on this thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £50 pre-loaded Nectar card NOW CLOSED

Week 3
The third week is about increasing the number of steps you take every day and finding ways to fit 'steps' around your lifestyle. PruHealth with Vitality members can earn points for the number of steps they take each day. Start earning once you've taken over 7,000 a day - the more steps, the more points.

Vitality Experience Participants: please share on this thread:

~ How are you getting on with your new FitBug pedometer?
~ How many steps are you taking each day? Does this surprise you? Disappoint you?
~ What tips can you share for increasing your steps per day.

Non Participants - what's your best tip for increasing the steps you take each day? Add your comment below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £50 pre-loaded Nectar card! Share your top tips for making it easy to get more steps into your daily life on this thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £50 pre-loaded Nectar card (prize draw Monday 10th Feb at 9am). NOW CLOSED

Week 4
Family Treat Week
PruHealth say "The very heart of Vitality is focussed on wellness and making healthy choices cheaper, easier and well-rewarding for our members. The weekly cinema ticket incentive is one of our most popular as it gives members the opportunity to treat themselves to a night at the cinema as a reward for their efforts to lead a healthier lifestyle. Small changes, big rewards."

Participants please share what film you are seeing or have seen with your Cineworld/ Vue voucher and what treats you like to enjoy generally with your family. How do you think the treat and reward element of the PruHealth with Vitality plan works?

Non participants...with half term coming up what treats do you have in store for your family? What are your families fav films?
~ Add your comment and you will be entered into a prize draw where one person will win a £50 preloaded Nectar card. Prize draw Monday 17 Feb at 9am. NOW CLOSED

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

We always have fruit mixed into breakfast ie. bananas and porridge. Often I buy frozen fruit as it is cheaper. A glass of fruit juice with lunch and then secret carrot grated into everything. Spag Bol with grated carrot is surprisingly good and it is a cheap way of making it stretch further.

Been to the gym again and beginning to hit my stride...not doing any classes though...too intimidated by super gym bunnies.....

Downloaded my first 10 days of Fitbug data...although realise that I've forgotten to input my food intake for the same timeframe so not entirely meaningful....I guess when we do our Fitbug week focus I will need to keep on top of doing that...

Still haven't got round to trying the coconut oil on the Ryvita....that's tomorrow's challenge...maybe with some exotic fruit stacked on top...Yum! Considering making a crumble with oats, seeds and substituting butter for coconut oil......Also wondering whether one could make custard with almond milk.......

Willem If you have custard powder (or corn flour) you can make it with any milk. We normally make it with Coconut Milk.

Non-participant

My DD1 won't eat vegetables (except mushrooms ), but loves fruit. I hide vegetable where possible eg bolognese with grated onion, carrot & parsnip. She enjoys soup too, as long as its smooth. We have fruit with every meal & for snacks - she loves grapes, banana, mango, apple, blueberries, tomatoes etc.

So my tip would be: offer plenty of different fruits and hide the vegetables if necessary!

if you're a veg hider (as I am) then try the frozen carrot and swede mash - it comes frozen in little pellets which you can take out just a handful and it mushes quite nicely into just about any stews and sauces

A couple of MNers posted their comments on a new thread - here they are:

olivia280177
I grate carrot and courgette into homemade turkey burgers and serve with a homemade corn salsa.
Also I serve sweet potato instead of a normal potato.
The kids often have ice cream or yoghurt with some berries for a pudding.

Geneticsbunny
We always have fruit mixed into breakfast ie. bananas and porridge. Often I buy frozen fruit as it is cheaper. A glass of fruit juice with lunch and then secret carrot grated into everything. Spag Bol with grated carrot is surprisingly good and it is a cheap way of making it stretch further.

Thanks for the tip Faithless12 - it's quite difficult not tucking into unhealthy food in this grotty weather...roll on Spring!

We freeze grapes - they are delicious alternative dessert and taste like little icecreams! Also saves on food waste if you tend to have grapes that go off before you get round to eating them :)

Willemdafoe - I actually found the people at the classes to be more friendly and less "gym-bunny" than the ones in the gym. All shapes, sizes and ages.

YEs several people at the acqua class were very friendly and showed me how to use the extremely impressive but incredibly complicated spa pool thing.

GwenStacy - I love your friend's blog and I'm now following it!

Some delicious-sounding recipes. It might inspire me to bake some healthier snacks for the DCs.

Did anyone see that very interesting (but equally alarming) Horizon progamme on BBC2 - about diet. That was enough to send one running from fat/sugar combos with a vengeance....

Thanks CointreauVersial....maybe I will have a look at classes....although I've settled into a bit of a routine which suits me and no doubt the classes that might interest me won't fit in...

17,000 footsteps again yesterday.....I can certainly feel 'the pain' of the exercise but not in a bad way....and I'm sure my tummy is flatter already...However, that in part could be due to giving up alcohol for January too....

I'm certainly sleeping a lot better....:-)

Funny, Willemdafoe, the chap who sits next to me in the office was just talking about it. I might have to see if it's on catch-up.

I am hugely impressed by your step-count, by the way. Even on the days with a gym visit or a run I haven't yet topped 10,000.

I went for my initial "quick start" assessment. It was great - I am a gym convert! I did very little - he showed me how to use the funny elliptical bungee cord cross trainer thingies, and the reclining bikes then talked about classes and what would work with my achilles tendonopathy/hypermobile knees/arthitic chest [old crock emoticon], gave me three simple upper body machiney weight thingies to do to help improve my posture/back (which isn;t too bad but I spend a lot of time sitting at a computer).

He has challenged me to try the body conditioning class followed immediately by the acqua next week!

Can't beleive I enjoyed it - I feel really motivated.

Lesson one - how to pretend you are healthy.

Toast a wholegrain slice of bread spread with coconut oil and top with agave syrup.

I'm going to own up to something here - I've actually got a degree in nutrition, so I wouldn't say I actually learnt a huge amount, but as with anything, knowing and doing are two very different things! What I did take away though were ways to implement the ideas Sally was explaining. I think as well that rather than throwing myself in to making all the dietary changes I should, I'm going to try and implement one thing a week - and this week it's trying to swap my snacks of biscuits for fruit or something a little healthier!

I'm currently breastfeeding a ten week old, so am eating enough for a small army, and snacking a lot - both mostly one handed! I've spent some of my points on healthier snacks - ie, expensive pre-prepared fruit packs (there's only so many apples I can eat!) I know I should eat more fish as well, so some salmon and white fish has made it in to my basket! I have been eating a fair amount of meat (was a vegetarian for several years until I became pregnant) as I've had awfully low iron levels and since giving birth they've been even worse, so I've treated us to some good quality steak.

Over the last few weeks we've relied a lot on ready meals (more the ones have to cook rather than microwave meals if you get my distinction?) and this week seems to be coinciding with E agreeing to sit in her seat whilst we cook so we're trying to meal plan a bit more and cook from fresh - it's something I enjoy doing so again, as with the exercise, this feels like it's doing me good mentally as well as physically! I have to say though, however bad it is for me, there's no way I can currently contemplate giving up my mugs of hot sweet tea! I'm not drinking alcohol though, so I figure I have a little leeway ;-)

I've made it to the gym a couple of times this week and both times have done classes. As I mentioned above, I'm currently breastfeeding, and sometimes my daughter will take a bottle of expressed milk, sometimes she won't (we will have this cracked in time for me to go to Champneys, we will!!) so I need to use my time away as efficiently as possible. I also find that if I use the gym, my current lack of fitness means I probably don't push myself as hard as I can and I know I do maybe give up slightly to easily - in a class I don't want to show myself up and so push myself to work as hard as I can! I'm loving the chance to go swimming as well, and try and swim, if only for 15 minutes each time I go.

On my way back from the gym. I am really enjoying it & got quite grumpy this week because I couldn't go when I really wanted to. It's tough trying to squeeze it all in!

I've not been as adventurous with the coconut oil yet - just to cool stir fry. I am a total convert to our slow cooker & have been using the lentils & beans I got to make some hearty veg stews (well DP has because he likes to cook more than I do!)

It is hard to get the dc's to join us as they are both such fussy things. Dd after eating most things for years has just announced that she doesn't like most things to eat now (apart from processed chicken type things!) We keep persevering but it does wear us down!
Would welcome any suggestions

*cook stir fry

How about making chicken nuggets with chicken breasts and breadcrumbs and egg? You could even use non wheat breadcrumbs! Mixing a little Parmesan in with breadcrumbs is tasty as well :)

we made chicken nuggets - didn't think of putting some parmesan in but they were lovely and DS helped make them. I cheated and bought panko breadcrumbs to speed things up as I were told that are pretty much unadulterated breadcrumbs and they were nice and crispy.

Non tester- I add things like beans to shepherds pie (is a bean a veg?)
As others have said grated carrot to spag Bol.
I offer ds fruit throughout the day and he has fruit for pudding after lunch & dinner.
Often has fruit on breakfast cereal too.
I often have to sneak veg into DHs food too, but he will eat homemade soup if I add some chilli, so I make a spicy butternut squash soup with chilli, ginger and garlic. Works a treat when feeling run down.

Non tester- we put veg into loads of meals. In lasagne and bolognaise sauce we put onion, pepper, corjertte and mushrooms. Add a salad to the side and it is quite healthy.

I felt really inspired by Sally's talk. Really just because she looked so, well, healthy! If ever there was a walking advert for healthy eating, I think she was it! That said, I'm not hugely convinced by the coconut oil thing, it's still a fat at the end of the day, and as I'm now in the habit of dry frying pretty much everything, I don't want to start using a fat where I wasn't before. Also I read up on it a bit and it seems that opinion is divided as to how much more beneficial it is for you than other fats, or even butter. I would be interested in your opinion Gwen, what do you think?

Fully on board with all the other things Sally suggested though. I had started trying to improve our diet after Christmas. We generally eat quite healthily at mealtimes anyway, but bad snacking and dessert habits had crept in. This week came just at the right time to boost my resolve, though in fairness, the dc's don't really seem to have noticed the 3 little changes I've made each week.

Here's what we had for tea this week:
Mon: healthy minestrone soup (made with wholemeal pasta and beans with wholemeal rolls and cheese
Tues: homemade fish fingers, potato wedges (cooked in the oven without oil) and beans.
Wed: steamed salmon and bean salad with ciabatta
Thur: wholemeal pasta with homemade bacon and mushroom sauce and cheese.
All with fruit and chocolate for pudding.

I'm really surprised how well it's going with the dc's tbh. We've only had one real disaster which was roast celeriac (bleurgh). Chucked it in the bin in the end and called domino's!

wholegraingoodness.hgca.com/

Yes, Stripytop I know where you're coming from with the coconut oil=fat. In the back of my mind I have this niggling nag going "but nuts are fattening...."

I tried the coconut oil on pumpkin seed Ryvita and they were very more-ish....and I can't help but feel, if you succumb to temptation, would easily be a tool for piling on the calories...

Made the more delicious raspberry crumble last night using coconut oil instead of butter/margarine, sesame seeds, wholemeal flour and oats a plenty......(oh and some flaked coconut for 'sweetness). Yummy but still relatively high cal I would have thought....

I do a Nigella with breadcrumbs (possibly one of my rare domestic goddess moments!) - just put stale ends of loaves (DH loves making bread!) in the foodprocessor and hey within a minute you have breadcrumbs-a-go-go...Put in a container and freeze for future use....Easy :-)

Three successive days of gyming it has given me a stiffness I haven't felt since at school doing games regularly (ha!). I agree fitting it in is less than easy sometimes though....

Still not having much luck with my Nectar card! Thought I'd be clever and use it in my lunch break (we have a massive Sainsbury's near where I work). I'd scanned the card at this store before so with my list of healthy foods ready I zoomed through the aisles chucking all the healthy stuff in - only to find that it was refused at the till!). I was running out of time and had to get back to work so instead of spending a copious amount of time at the customer service desk, I had to give up. Was disappointed. I will have to try and find some time this weekend.

Still keeping at it with the healthy eating. Made a yummy lentil curry last night. Trying to reduce meat intake and this really hit the spot. I also went to the gym again last night (with my flashy new gym gear!) and really enjoyed it. Did plenty of cardio and even some running (which i never do!). I have been told to do short bursts of running then fast walking on the machine to build up my stamina. Felt really good after an hour and slept like a baby!

I did a big Sainsburys shop last night, and resolved to try several new/healthy things:
Kale: I have heard it is high in iron, and we all like cabbage, so I shall give it a try.
Asparagus: Lush, dipped into boiled eggs as a low-carb breakfast.
Aubergines: I fancy a big ratatouille, maybe with feta crumbled on top.
Celeriac : Sorry, Stripy, I love this. We have a traditional family dish at Christmas which is creamed celeriac and carrot. Usually I mash it, or make a gratin with it.
Wholewheat noodles: I didn't know these existed until I saw them on the Healthy Foods list, so I'll be road-testing these on the DCs.
Seeded tortilla wraps: To jazz up the DCs' packed lunches
River Cobbler: Tis a fish! One of those non-endangered ones we're supposed to eat lots of, so it was "rebranded" with a fancy name. I also bought some salmon, which is popular with all, which we will have with some jerk seasoning.
Coconut oil: I bit the bullet.....6! I adore coconut, but was nervous about using it for savoury dishes. Having road-tested it on a piece of pan-fried tuna last night, I can confirm it was fine, but I probably wouldn't use it for anything bland or eggy, as I'm sure the coconut flavour would come through.

I also bought my usual shed-load of veg, fruit and some chicken. But unfortunately, when I came to pay, I also had problems using my Nectar card. I did register the card AND used it to make a small purchase in-store beforehand (but possibly I needed to do this the day before so it filtered through the systems), but the "computer said no".....anyway, I will no doubt use the points at some stage, just not this week (my fridge is bursting at the seams).

Stripy - your comment about fat - I do remember Sally saying that a certain amount of "good" fat was necessary, and was less of an enemy than sugar, but I'm not sure if she would advocate extra fat if you aren't consuming it currently, just to substitute good for bad. Of course, the low-carbing mantra is to keep up your fat intake, but that's a whole other story!