“I can honestly say it’s improved not just my physical but my mental health too and I would recommend the programme to anyone who has difficulty losing weight or who has lack of motivation or knowledge to improve their health.”
Rita, 51, Type 2 Diabetes
Rita’s thoughts on KiActiv® Health
Rita’s blood glucose levels have returned to pre-diabetic levels
“Received a great boost on Thursday when the diabetic nurse followed up my most recent bloods to tell me that I was back down to pre-diabetes levels and my cholesterol was also back down to 4, which is fabulous news.”
Rita’s Story
Rita came to KiActiv® looking to increase her physical activity levels to help self-manage her Type 2 Diabetes. She had low levels of physical activity at baseline and suffered from chronic lower back pain and an Achilles injury.
During her time with KiActiv®, Rita significantly increased her physical activity across the 12-week programme and continues to increase her activity to this day. Rita lost 8.82kg (8.24% of body weight) and reduced her blood glucose concentrations to pre-diabetic levels, in addition to reducing her cholesterol levels over the 12-week programme.
She was able to do this through understanding the benefits of everyday physical activity with the help of KiActiv®, which included starting to put piles of clothes in another room when she was ironing so that she had to move more, or going to the local shop by foot rather than in her car. Ultimately, she said the programme benefitted her “motivation and understanding” and that it had positively impacted her family with “children who want to come with me on walks”.
Rita started a weekly water-based activity session with her physiotherapist and made a conscious effort to walk more often. By the end of the programme, she was finding walking easier and the same route was taking 5-10 minutes less time than it was taking her before participating in the programme. She was also noticing hill climbs were not impacting her as much as they were beforehand, and she was definitely feeling better. Thus, she was able to increase the intensity of her walks.
Rita has been able to sustain her new physical activity levels since completion. She found the personalised online dashboard extremely valuable to be able to see that her efforts were paying off. She spent the majority of the programme above her baseline levels across 4 dimensions of physical activity and through small adjustments to her lifestyle, she was able to reach ‘near the guideline’ for optimal health and maintain this.
She increased her calorie burn by ~300 kcals at her peak, which would have no doubt contributed to her significant weight loss during the programme. A stand-out improvement made by Rita includes beginning the programme doing ~17 mins/week of Moderate Bouts, which she significantly increased throughout the programme and is currently peaking at ~260 mins/week.
In her final session, Rita explained that she had noticed that she was moving more and really enjoying being active, as well as finding that she wasn’t craving or enjoying sweet food as much anymore.
