How do you like to keep active? What activities do you enjoy the most?

I am pretty active and do lots of different things including walking, cycling, paddle boarding, yoga and strength training.

Why do you feel it is important to lead a physically active lifestyle?

Being physically active is important for so many reasons. Not only for your physical health (improving heart health and helping reduce the risk of many diseases) but your fitness, strength and flexibility is key to being able to deal day to day things with ease like lifting and carrying and various physical jobs at work or at home and not getting injured. This is particularly important as you get older. I’m 50 and I’m probably more active now than I was when I was much younger. As women age and their estrogen hormone levels drop, it affects bone and muscle strength so it’s really important to do some kind of strength training to increase muscle, protect bones and reduce the chances of osteoporosis in later life. It’s also massively important for your mental health. It improves my mood so much, reduces anxiety, makes me feel more positive, helps quicker thinking and better decision making and helps me sleep better. It’s basically a no brainer! Even if you can just manage a short walk, anything is better than nothing!

How does the Active Hub platform support your physical movement?

The challenges are great as competing as a team makes you want to ensure you don’t let your team members down and so really motivates you to complete what you set out to do. Or the solo challenges push you to do something on those days where perhaps if you weren’t participating you might find an excuse not to do it!

How has participating in the challenges helped increase your engagement with other colleagues?

When we set up a team for a challenge, I set up a Whats App group so we could all encourage each other and so we were constantly in touch, even at the weekends! (Apparently I’m a bit of a task master and earned the name Captain!) We were also engaging with other competitors in a bit of friendly competition so it’s great for teams and for the business as a whole to get people moving and talking!

Has having the Active Hub in place via your employer enabled you to lead a more active lifestyle?

Yes definitely. As I said I’m pretty active anyway, but this has definitely pushed me to the next level where I am now doing something every single day.

What is your current active goal?

My current goals are around strength - lifting heavier weights, doing 10 full press ups, being able to do Crow pose in Yoga and the non-negotiable getting out for a walk every day.

Exercise to energise! It really winds my family up when I bang on about it but it’s so true!