Consultant Nurse and Acting Community Services Manager, Dementia Services
"I don't really enjoy running, but I decided I wanted to start walking more to improve my mental and physical health and wellbeing. I bought a Fitbit to monitor my steps and track my activity and set myself a goal of 10,000 steps a day.
"I saw a post on Twitter which asked 'Are you looking to start #CouchTo5K? #HealthAndHustle are back on 4th August helping others to try a new challenge.' Intrigued, I wondered, 'What the hell is Health and Hustle?'
“So I investigated further and found this really motivational film on YouTube, as well as information about Health and Hustle on the Trust intranet.
“Joining the Health and Hustle was really easy. I already had my Fitbit, now all I had to do was send my email address to Kevin, who replied with an invite and registration instructions.
“It’s great being a member of the Health and Hustle community. I use the Fitbit app to map my activity against everyone else in the GHC H8H group, as well as other teams in the county, such as Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust, the CCG and GHC Community Services.
“I’m not normally very competitive – only when I’m playing board games – but I’ve found this element of fun competition really makes me motivated and focused on my goals. I set myself private little challenges and targets to beat other members of the H8H community.
“I noticed one of my colleagues was doing several thousand steps before 9am every morning. This motivated me to go for a one-hour walk first thing every day to try and beat her. Most mornings now I will have done about 7,000 steps by 9am. By the end of Week 1 of joining the Health and Hustle I had walked 75,000 steps, and by the end of Week 2, my step count had gone up to 85,000. Before joining the Hustle I was averaging around 12,000 steps a week, which is disgraceful!
“As well as the number of steps I take in a day, my Fitbit tracks my activity to show me things like how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed. Seeing this sort of information really motivates me to take the stairs instead of the lift and increase my daily activity levels generally.”