Wednesday 19 March 2014

My AIA Vitality Journey



AIA Vitality is a science-backed wellness program that provides a way for you to get fitter and healthier whilst getting some tangible rewards along the way. If you are already fit and healthy - you still get rewards for maintaining that lifestyle. 

The level of rewards you gets depends on the status that you achieve - Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum and include things like cheaper movies tickets, discounted flights, discounted fruit & veges and discounted insurance on certain benefits. The more you engage in the program, the more points you get to reach each Vitality Status. 

There are three components to this - Knowing your health, improving your health and enjoying the rewards. 



 Knowing your health can be a bit of an eye-opener/smack in the face kind of experience. You first do a Vitality Health Review where you're asked questions about your lifestyle and behaviour as well as what you think your clinical measure are like blood glucose, cholestorol levels etc are. You're asked about your eating and exercise habits to get a gauge on how you doing and what you can do to be better. You are givien your Vitality Age. Then you do your Vitality Health Check through Chemmart. It is based on facts that are there in black and white. You have to take your measurements - your weight, height, chest and waist measurements and you get your BMI (Body Mass Index), Your blood pressure, cholestorol and a random blood glucose test is taken. This is stuff that you just cannot hide away from.  Your Vitality Age is then adjusted to match the facts from these results. I am about to turn 40 in a few months and my Vitality Age when I started was 48. So yes, my body was 9 years older than what it should be. Which is great if you're a teen trying to get into a night club - but not so great if you're a wife and mother of three.


Improving your health is where the fun begins! You can challenge yourself and others and get points for that. You can set personalised goals and get points for reaching those. There are many things you can do to get points. Each person's journey is different. I've embraced the exercise - I love it. I use my Fitbit to record the number of steps I take every single day. I have my little Fitbit community of friends that provides great motivation for me and I knew I was competitive.. but seeing someone go past me on the Fitbit ladder drives me nuts and I become this mad woman, walking around the house in circles or getting on the treadmill at every chance I can get. My achilles heel is my eating. As a hearty polynesian woman, I absolutely love my food. Love, love, love it! What Vitality has done for me is it is slowly helping me to change my eating habits. I have changed from eating potato chips every single night to maybe one or two nights a week. My take away lunches have changed from KFC to Subway - although i do have a Hanaichi thing going on now. It is slowly changing, but it is changing. The fact that it's making me do a double take is a huge step for me. 

The thing I love about AIA Vitality is that I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life. It is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. It is designed with every intention for you to go the distance because it provides tools to help you get there. The rest is up to you. 

I can hear you saying 'Oh, it's one of those programs that takes you forever to reach the next level'. Well, I jumped on the AIA Vitality Express as part of the staff launch in November 2013. It has taken me only 4 months and I have just reached Gold Status (Yeeeeeeeee!). My Vitality Age has come down 6 years to 42!!  I haven't had to make Extreme Makeover - Home Edition porportionate changes, it has been little tweaks here and there. Seriously if I can do it - absolutely everyone can!



It would be remiss of me not to mention that if you are looking to get any financial product such as insurance, you should contact someone who is qualified to give you the personalised advice you deserve. I also should note that I am not getting any financial rewards for posting this - it is purely voluntary and I do it because I really believe in this. If you know me - you know that I don't do things for show and tell. 

I do enjoy the rewards at the moment of getting cheaper movie tickets and the opportunity to fly overseas with cheaper airfares is absolutely awesome. There are plenty of rewards you can get - check them out here

For me, the greatest reward of all is priceless - it's TIME. More time to be around, more time spent building behaviours with the kids that will have them around longer and more time being able to actually do things with them instead of not being able to fit on theme park rides, or having to get extension seat belts or just running around in the park with them. And if the unexpected happens - having the insurance there to take care of them when it's my time to hit the heavens, so they don't have to spend any time grieving over me financially.  Priceless. 






*** DISCLAIMER:*** 
I am an employee of AIA. The statements or opinions expressed on this site are my own 
and do not necessarily represent those of AIA.