Helen Spilsted of Murrayfield Primary Schoool was inspired to join the Workplace Challenge following her healthy lifestyle drive to increase the amount of exercise she was doing and to loose some weight.
As the schools Well being co-ordinator I came back into school after Christmas and found an envelope on my chair with the sign up leaflets. I took them with me to the morning briefing and put them on the table in front of the whole staff and said I would be signing up and challenged them to do the same!
I signed up that evening and thought, hey, this looks interesting. I did the survey and got an extra 500 points...wahey! I went into school the next day and asked if anyone else had signed up and realised a couple of other people had! Being a competitive whatnot and also being on a healthy lifestyle drive as it was January I started logging all the exercise I was doing.
I have found it difficult to motivate staff to join in with activities which is indicative of stress levels and work/life balance of a teacher. Although the school has now started getting involved in the "Golden Mile" walks which staff have been taking part in. I have been gradually building up to doing more and more activity by going to my local gym, going for early morning runs of 1km, walking 1 mile at school, going swimming with my daughter and husband and eventually leading up to jogging 5km last Sunday! As a result I have lost 9.5 lbs since Christmas and in conjunction with stopping smoking fairly recently I definitely feel a lot healthier than I was last year!
"Life is so much better with regular exercise and a healthier diet. I have more energy and feel better all round. At my heaviest my feet ached, I snored, I had heartburn and I have now cured all of those things with a little help from the Workplace Challenge!"