Most of us cannot get fit while working our day job. There are the lucky(?) few who get to do something active all day for a living and attain a tremendous level of fitness by simply showing up and doing the work. For those of us with a sedentary occupation, it's up to us to get off the couch after hours (or before!) to get our sweat on. My employer has introduced a new program that has the potential of really changing people's lives and increasing the general fitness level of their employees.
Check out Nuvita.
Yes, this program has tremendous savings potential for the employer by lowering the number of employee claims on their group health insurance. However, as an employee, I'm naturally more interested in what's in it for me. Here's a rundown of how the program works.
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Health Assessments - Each participant, there's about 40 in our current test cycle, receives a health assessment at the beginning of the 12 week program. They record body composition, blood pressure, cardiovascular health through a VO2max text, bicep strength, flexibility and the results from a blood panel. They use this data along with your age and gender to come up with what they call a Body Age and a Nuvita Age. The Body Age is similar to what you might have seen on Biggest Loser, basically how old your body is acting. The Nuvita Age is the lowest possible Body Age that they feel you can reach if you fully participate in the program. My ages, for instance, are a Chronological Age of 34, a Body Age of 36, and a Nuvita Age of 29. They'll repeat the complete health assessment at the end of the 12 week program to chart your progress. Obviously the 29 sounds pretty good to me!
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Coaching - A Nuvita health coach walks each participant through the program. Using the results of your health assessment they create a fitness plan for each individual and monitor your progress. They also provide true coaching value in supplying health lessons and guidance in nutrition and lifestyle changes. My coach meets with us weekly.
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Exercise Tracking - Each participant is given a heart rate monitor to track their cardiovascular exercise throughout the 12 week program. Mine is a Garmin F70. You keep the monitor regardless of your level of success with the program. You simply wear the monitor when you exercise, it records your heart rate and times the exercise session and then uploads your exercise history to your myNuvita.com tracking website. Your weekly cardio requirements vary based on your health assessment results. The program also asks you log three mobility/strength training sessions per week.
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Nutrition - Your coach and the website also helps you to plan out a healthy meal plan including three meals and two snacks per day. You're also asked to log your meals within your website along with water consumption and whether or not you took your daily multi vitamin.
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Competition - To me the real secret to the success of this program is the competition factor. Each employee is assigned to a team of 5 to 10 other employees. You're competing against the other teams in the company for highest cardio time, best meals, strength and mobility workouts and general participation in the program. We haven't even officially begun the program yet and the trash talking has already begun! Of course, eventually this comes down to individuals doing the work, but having a team to support won't hurt one bit.
So that's how Nuvita works. Fire away with questions, I'll try to answer them and I'll definitely keep you updated on my progress.