BetterPoints gave me the nudge I needed to get off my posterior, says Peter
It’s easy to slip into being inactive. Peter had plans to keep active when he retired, but after a while he lost the motivation. BetterPoints helped him get it back.
‘I was adamant I wasn’t going to become a couch potato and spend my day watching TV and snacking,’ says Peter.
Initially, he did well. He set himself a target of walking at least seven miles a week and kept an electronic diary of his progress. ‘But my resolve weakened,’ he says, ‘and before too long I was not going out for a walk more than once or twice a week.’
Peter found he was driving more for small tasks such as shopping. ‘I had become lazy and was using my car far more than I needed.’
Then the London Borough of Sutton’s Sutton Plan programme introduced Peter to BetterPoints.
‘BetterPoints gave me the nudge I needed to get off my posterior and get back into being more active,’ he says.
‘The challenges to achieve the small but important milestones to getting active gave me encouragement. And the points awarded, as well as the tickets for the draws, are a nice little reward.’
‘I now walk to the supermarket more often and shop more frequently and am getting out regularly.’
‘Also,’ says Peter, ‘I feel better knowing I’m doing my little bit to stop us all choking to death on car fumes.’
‘It is less than three minutes for me to drive to the supermarket to pick up a couple of bags of shopping. It came as a bit of a surprise that, with all the traffic congestion on the local roads, it actually didn’t take much longer to walk.’
Peter has really enjoyed getting back into walking. ‘I’ve discovered roads I didn’t know existed; and I didn’t realise how many different parks and green spaces Sutton has.’
And that target of seven miles a week? After six weeks with BetterPoints Peter had clocked up a jaw-dropping 83 miles.
‘Did I ever think I could do that?’ he asks. ‘Never in a million years.’