The Power of a Compelling Wellbeing Challenge

Photos by Sportcam

Earlier this month I took part in the 25th Windsor triathlon organised by Human Race.

I've done many events over the years but none with quite so many entrants as this - 3000 in total!  Would there be room for us all was my initial concern.

I need not have worried. The previous 24 editions had paved the way for a seamlessly organised race. Well-executed swim starts in waves were followed by a bike route that turned out to have plenty of space for everyone to hurtle along. Then the run was 3 laps around Windsor which wasn't exactly built with major sporting events in mind yet the course didn't feel crowded as it perhaps should have done with this many people making their way past the ever impressive castle.

Photos by Sportcam

Human Race had put me in touch with some writers and bloggers who were entering the event as a means to test themselves with a new challenge. The idea being that I coach them through the process of preparing themselves while balancing their life in the months before race day.

The individuals in the group had entered the event for a variety of reasons. Either they were taking on a triathlon for the first time, or they were attracted by the challenge of a longer distance course than they were used to. One thing they all had in common was the fact that training for the event was not going to be simple within their already packed schedules.

Photos by Sportcam

In the weeks and months leading up to the event I spoke with each of them about how to organise their weekly timetable in an attempt to perfect their approach in all three disciplines of triathlon while at the same time avoiding fatigue, injury, mental exhaustion and metaphorically dropping the ball at work or at home.

The specific challenges for each of the team were different whether it was the fear of diving into the river Thames, the dread of getting out of a wetsuit at speed, the uncertainty of where they should be going on the bike course, the unknown quantity of running 10k after a cold morning plunge and a hot pursuit through the countryside surrounding Windsor, or even just the 4am alarm call to get to the start line on time.  One thing was consistent for all of them however: the event was taking place on June 14th and the date seemed to be approaching at lightning speed.

For some of them, the lows along the way were pretty low. It's not easy training for any sporting event, never mind one that has so many moving parts as a triathlon. Some expected this and others were taken a little by surprise. 

But during all the trials and tribulations of training, the highs and the lows, knowledge of what they needed to do on race day, and when they needed to pull a performance out of the bag, kept them focused and kept them motivated.

And by the end of the process, one thing they all ultimately agreed on was that all the low moments and all the effort paled into insignificance compared to the joy of completing the event and the enormous satisfaction of a job well done.  Yes it was painful but they were unanimous - it was definitely worth it.

Photos by Sportcam

So let's focus on 2 simple lessons from the journey the group went on:
1) If you want to keep your wellbeing on track, no matter how busy life gets, get an event or two in the diary. Always have something to aim for that shapes your training schedule and gives you reason to push on when you're tempted to put your health and fitness on the back burner as other priorities shout louder.

2) If you're going to sign up or an event, make it something worthwhile. A true challenge will give you a greater sense of achievement when you cross the finish line, and teach you so much about yourself and what you're capable of along the way. It really is a case of the more you put into it, the more you'll get out so aim high.

So congratulations again to @keepitsimpElle, @sj_perera, @joannaruck, @GlennMMitchell and the rest of the group.

You can read Joanna's experience of the event here.

Read about Glenn here.

Elle's report is here.

If you feel that picking a specific challenge will focus your wellbeing and performance, you'll find some fantastic events to enter at www.humanrace.co.uk.  I'll look forward to seeing you at the start line!

You might also be interested to read:
Motivation tips from Triathlon: 3 clear steps to fast-track wellness results

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A Fantastic Exercise Recovery Strategy

In our recent article in Men's Running Magazine, 17 Ways to a Faster Recovery, I mentioned using the foam roller to stretch out tight muscles and rebalance your body.

We've worked with lots of people who've managed to fix some quite painful and sometimes long-term injuries using the foam roller so we're big fans of making rolling a regular part of your routine.

In the June edition of Women's Running Magazine there's a guide to how to best use the foam roller and they've kindly let us reproduce the article here.

Try adding some of these suggestions to your weekly exercise schedule.  Our personal favourite is the ITB (iliotibial band) release.  It can be painful but it's the answer to a lot of knee pain experienced by runners and cyclists.

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Achieving Your Ideal Wellness Results: The 3 most important questions to ask yourself

Many people express the desire to make different lifestyle choices and sharpen up their health, fitness and energy levels.  In the quest to turn this desire into action, we've identified 3 key questions that you must ask yourself.

1. What specifically do I want to achieve with my personal wellbeing?

If you're serious about great wellness results you need to think beyond the headline aims to tone up, get fit or lose weight. 

(If you really want to lose weight by the way you need to read my book, The NLP Diet) 

For quick success your objectives need to be more precise. A second level of more specific questions could include:

• How fit do you want to be? 
• How will you measure progress? 
• What does a healthy eating routine look like for you and your family? 
• What does better work life balance mean to you? 
• How much weight do you want to lose or gain and by when? 
• When you consider better sleep routines, what will these consist of?

2. Why do I want to achieve these results?

This is crucial. We are all exposed to millions of messages telling us we should be thinner, richer, healthier, fitter, faster, more dynamic, better balanced and more successful. The secret is only to pay attention to the messages that are relevant and interesting to you for specific and compelling reasons. Use these messages to develop your individual plan and turn your desires into a clear mission statement like this one:

'I want to be fit enough to complete a 10K run in 50 minutes because the training to achieve this will give me a focus to my weekly exercise, keep me on track with my food routine and my sleep pattern, and give me more energy to perform better at work and be in a better frame of mind to support my family. Achieving my goal within three months will give me a huge sense of satisfaction and boost my confidence.' 

3. When do I want to begin experiencing benefits of making lifestyle changes and when will the landmark moments in my progress appear?

The time frame you choose to achieve your objectives needs to be appropriate and exciting. Losing 7 pounds in 18 months or running a marathon within 5 years probably won't change much that you do right now. Too much time can be as bad as too little so be precise.  Focus on the combination of a) changes that are quick to implement so you can experience immediate benefits, and b) make sure your actions lead toward some clear key benchmarks of notable progress.  

For example, a walk or run every day leading towards completing a marathon in 6-months will improve daily energy levels, improve fitness, enhance creativity and boost mood and provide you with a real sense of achievement when you cross the finish line on the chosen date of the event.

Consider carefully what will you do every day to move yourself towards your chosen objectives. Only with regular input, daily sharpening the saw as Stephen Covey puts it, will you reach your goal quickly and effectively.  Read our post on the power of consistent wellbeing action. 

Remember these questions are all probably a natural part of the processes you go through in your  professional role and in any business project. You're familiar with tackling the finer details at work so always make sure you apply this approach to your wellness goals. 

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Free Toolkit To Boost Health & Energy In Your Organisation

To make it easy to keep your staff healthy, happy, engaged and motivated, sign up for our free wellness toolkit.  

The toolkit includes access to everything you need to inspire colleagues to get active, eat well, sleep better, build personal resilience and achieve a balanced lifestyle.  

The toolkit contains:

• Regular wellbeing tips: practical advice for your colleagues and strategic input for your business

• A regularly updated catalogue of fact sheets on key wellbeing topics

• Real world reviews of wellness initiatives in action to help you refine your ideal programme

• A complimentary wellbeing audit for your business - the simplest way to pinpoint how to take the wellbeing of your staff to the next level

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing workshops leading to results like these: 'More energy, less stress, get fit and eat well'

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing days and events generating feedback like this: 'How to run an amazing wellbeing event'

To receive your free company wellness toolkit all you need to do is email us at info@the-tonic.com and write 'wellness toolkit' in the subject line.

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A Simple Way to Commit to Great Wellness Results in 2014

In a recent Press Release from Employee Benefits Magazine you can read how we're helping Roffey Park Institute keep their staff healthy and engaged.

Remember, if you want to help your staff stay on track with their wellness objectives for 2014, some simple motivation and accountability can go a long way.  Here's how it can work:

EXCLUSIVE: Roffey Park Institute has launched a series of half-day wellbeing workshops for its employees.

The first three events, which were rolled out in September and October, were attended by around 60 of the organisation’s 80 staff.

Roffey Park Institute creates programmes on leadership, organisational development, HR and coaching, so it is keen to ensure its employees are also developed, engaged and happy.

Caroline Disano, head of programme delivery and HR projects at Roffey Park Institute, said: “We’re quite aware that employees are going to be asked to do more with less, and will be busy, so we wanted to be very mindful of the health and wellbeing angle.”

The organisation partnered corporate wellness organisation The Tonic to introduce the workshops. The Tonic’s owner, Jeff Archer, encouraged all attendees to choose three wellbeing commitments.

Disano added: “Mine, for instance, were to make sure I got into the gym for a half-hour session once a week, to try to drink more water and to try to spend a bit more me time.”

Roffey Park Institute offers a range of health and wellbeing initiatives to employees, including flexible-working arrangements, eye tests, enhanced paid annual leave above the statutory minimum, free fruit, herbal teas and refreshments, healthy options in itson-site restaurant, use of its on-site gym, sauna and steam room, use of the grounds and access to the forest for exercise and recreation.

“We have a super site here,” said Disano. “We’ve got 65 bedrooms onsite, a pool and a gym, and beautiful grounds. We do an awful lot around health and wellbeing. We wanted to tie [the workshops] in to complement our existing initiatives that we do around health and wellbeing.”

The organisation communicates its health and wellbeing strategy using a noticeboard, quarterly staff updates and management meetings.

Roffey Park Institute intends to follow its 2013 workshops with an event in the first part of 2014. Disano added: “It will cover content again, but also revisit people’s commitment and giving them the space to have a discussion in their break-up groups about how successful they have been and what hurdles they have encountered.

“People walk around the building asking colleagues if they’ve done their commitments this week. It’s created quite a lot of energy with members of staff. We want to keep that momentum going.” 

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Six months = 35 Kilos Lighter: How wellness changed a life

Here's an Inspiring story if ever there was one.

In May this year I met a participant attending our wellness programme as part of his organisations leadership training.  Through the programme he came along to our presentations, fitness sessions, yoga classes and, along with the other participants on the programme, attended a short health assessment.

We met again during the concluding part of the programme earlier this month when I bumped into him in the gym before the programme had even begun.  This in itself was impressive as he'd told me in May that he wasn't a big fan of the gym.

When I saw him again it took me a moment to be sure it was him.  His weight loss in six months was dramatic but more than that he was walking taller and looked younger and happier.

During the closing module of the programme we re-measured his health assessment stats and confirmed that he had lost 35 kilos, reduced his blood pressure, lowered his resting heart rate, shed 11% of his body fat and improved his fitness levels beyond recognition.

But it's not just the numbers that are important here. He says he feels like a new man having made changes that he can explain better than me.

'Over the last 6-months I've steadily lost weight, dropped my heart rate at rest from 90 to 60 beats per minute and more than doubled my lung function.  I exercise 6 times a week but, most importantly, I'm happy to do this.  I want to get to the gym rather than feeling forced to go.  I've changed my approach to eating but the process has been about even more than losing weight and being fit.  It has given me huge confidence that if I can do this I can do anything.'

He added, 'Thanks for the inspiring tips, it really changed my life.  This is the beginning and now it's all about sustaining it and I WILL.'

We love results like this.  If you'd like us to help your colleagues change their lives with some inspiration and simple healthy choices, please get in touch.

Image by RubenPS Flickr

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Alcohol, Blood Pressure & Successful Strategies for Healthy Drinking

We’re often asked about alcohol.  People are usually concerned about how much is good to drink, should they abstain completely, or how many nights off alcohol they should have each week? 

There are clear government guidelines on what constitutes the recommended consumption for good health, and there has been much research done into the effects of alcohol on many areas of health, performance and sleep to name a few.

For the sake of this week’s series of blogs to coincide with Men’s Health Week, we’re looking at alcohol and it’s effects on blood pressure, primarily because we come across a lot of people with high blood pressure and alcohol can sometimes be a factor.

It’s important to point out right away thought that it’s not all bad news for drinkers as there is some evidence that moderate drinking can lower blood pressure and help you relax. 

The not so positive news however is that too much alcohol increases the tension in arteries causing blood pressure to rise.  Excessive consumption can also lead to weight gain, which in turn brings with it an increased risk of high blood pressure. 

As with much of our work, successful drinking is all about balance, so how do employees go about finding the right balance?

Many people we work with have an idea of what healthy drinking means for them but there are inherent challenges of working life that can get in the way, including:

• Work-related social events
• Business dinners (and lunches)
• Business travel

There’s also the factor that alcohol is often used as a way to unwind after a busy day or week .  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you bear in mind that just because a little makes you feel good, more will not necessarily make you feel even better.

When it comes to maintaining a successful approach to drinking there are 4 simple steps to planning a strategy for balance, health and optimum blood pressure:

1. Devise a macro strategy

Most people know the consumption of alcohol that they enjoy and they also know (but often only with hindsight) when they’ve tipped the balance into the territory where they feel their alcohol consumption isn’t optimum in relation to achieving everything they’d like to during each week.  If you need to clarify the ideal consumption levels, keep notes for a couple of weeks on what you drink and when, and then make a call on how many units a week and how many alcohol free nights works best for you.

 

2. Apply a reality check

Look at your schedule – family plans, work commitments and social life – and plan your desired alcohol consumption around all of these events to ensure you can enjoy life while remaining within the limits of what works for you.

3. Develop some micro strategies

Be clear ahead of all events, social gatherings and work functions what your limits are and what your non-alcoholic choices will be.  If you plan ahead of time to have one or two drinks and then move on to sparkling water or fruit juice, then this is what will happen.  If you simply have a vague intention to moderate your intake and just hope for the best, you may not end up with the result you’re looking for.

4. Anticipate distractions

Sometimes our best intentions are waylaid by the persuasive abilities of others, so if you suspect that peer pressure or the excitement of the moment may distract you from your best intentions, be ready with mental prompt that will keep you on track.  Remind yourself that you’ve chosen your limits based on what you’ve decided, with a clear head, will give you the best result over the medium term.  Do not be distracted by what can be perceived as short-term extra pleasure. 

If you think you’ll need one, have a reason to stop drinking or not to drink in the first place that you can share with others.  Explain this to those you’re with at the beginning of the night and they’ll respect your choice for the rest of the evening.

So whatever your desired level of alcohol consumption is, even if you're aiming to avoid it completely for a given period, make your plan and review it regularly to ensure you get the right result for you and your healthy living objectives.

Image by Flickr:  isante_magazine

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Huge Appetite for Company Healthy Eating Plan

**Press Release**

700 employees download new programme in just one week

Over 700 employees have downloaded a new company-wide healthy eating plan within its first week of going live.

The plan, which was designed by wellness company The Tonic for British Gas in conjunction with the British Gas Wellbeing Team, contains a comprehensive selection of meals, snacks, recipes and shopping lists, along with healthy living resources for staff working in a variety of different environments including those based in offices and those working in the field.

British Gas National Wellbeing Manager Helen Knight explained, ‘We’re aware that healthy eating can be a real challenge across our business, so we wanted to provide our employees with a practical solution.  Our aim is to be proactive in supporting our people to take good care of themselves.  The healthy eating plan looks fantastic and we’re delighted that it has proved so popular already’.

Tonic Director Jeff Archer says, ‘In putting this programme together our aim is to make healthy eating as easy as possible for people who we appreciate are time poor.  The plan includes plenty of suggestions to cater for all tastes along with practical advice to help everyone fit healthy eating into the busy routine of work and family life.’ 

For more information on The Tonic and their corporate wellbeing programmes contact Jeff Archer on 020 8995 1302 or jeff@the-tonic.com

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