Motivation & Rewards For My Healthy Living Firefighter Husband
That handsome guy is my husband. He’s a Paramedic and Captain at the Fire Department. Overall, he follows a pretty healthy living lifestyle. He kind of has to, right? Saving lives and fighting fires is some serious business. People count on you to ‘save the day’… He’s got the eating healthy down. Gets plenty of rest, drinks the right amount of water to stay hydrated. All the basics. Now that he’s hit his 40’s however, he’s discovered a crack in his exercise routine. Those old knee joints are giving him a bit of achy-ness. We’ve had to find some motivation to make sure he gets enough steps into his walking and running schedule.
Healthy Living With Walgreen’s Steps With Balance Rewards
Studies show to maintain a healthy living lifestyle, you should work in about 10,000 steps per day. I know! It sounds like a lot! In all honesty, it’s really not! We found a really great way to help him keep track of all those required steps. Also, it provides motivation and rewards for working them into your daily routine! Over at the Walgreen’s website, you can find their Steps With Balance Rewards program. You can also use it on your iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones with the Walgreens app. We found it’s easier right on the computer though. That way, we both can check in and see how he’s doing and how many Reward Points he’s earned. See in that photo above it shows how it keeps a log of what he’s done each day? Super easy!
First, he set up his account, created some healthy living goals for himself (walking, running and the frequency for both) and each day he completes them, he earns Register Rewards for me to save on shopping! You earn points for meeting your goals. And, they add up quick too. You’ll get 250 points when you log your first goal, 20 points for every mile you walk or run, and 20 points if you include the daily weight management. Kind of a win/win, right? Because his schedule can be super busy, he wanted to set some realistic goals that he could actually achieve. The site gives you suggestions, but you’re able to fully customize them to your lifestyle and needs. Since his are focusing on walking and running, he focused on those two.
Since his biggest hurdles in keeping those healthy living goals seem to be his knee joints, we decided to pick up some Osteo Bi-Flex because it helps improve joint comfort, joint flexibility, and joint mobility. Also, because fire season is right around the corner here in the desert SW, he’ll be out in the heat sweating buckets. We hit up the water aisle to find something to keep him hydrated. And, added a good amount of Balance Rewards to our growing points! Total score! You can see our whole healthy living shopping trip over here!
After logging in every day and our most recent shopping trip, we’ve earned a total of 4,220 points. When we reach 5,000 points, we can either redeem them for $5 off any purchase at Walgreen’s or keep saving them up. I think the super hero fire fighter has decided to save up all our points so he can reach 40,000. That earns you a $50 reward. He really wants to treat himself for meeting those goals towards healthy living and get a FitBit tracker. He has a step counter app on his phone, but it’s really not the same. Those are really cool!
Also, to keep you motivated and rewarded for healthy living, Walgreen’s has a Step Up To Win Sweepstakes running now through May 31st that you should totally enter. I tried again this morning, but no luck. They have daily instant win prizes and a grand prize trip to The Biggest Loser resort (winner’s choice of Chicago, Utah, Malibu, Niagara, NY). Seriously, how cool is that! Some of the daily prizes include Walgreen’s Gift Cards, Fiber One products, Brita Pitchers, Fitbit Zip, (which is what we’re hoping to score!) all kinds of good stuff!
To see what other great bloggers are saying, check out the Aisle Share FUN page! Are you ready to get your healthy living on? What’s your main goal?
I am going to start walking more!
i love this program by Walgreens! My sister is a firefighter too 🙂
It’s a super tough job! Have to stay in great shape!
I hope she stays safe always!
Fire fighting is a hard job! It is important for us to keep our men healthy!
Absolutely!!
Rewards for staying active? This might just be the motivation this cheapskate needs to get moving! 🙂
LOL
It sure doesn’t hurt!
Love that they reward you for staying active and bless your husband for being a hometown hero
Thanks Maria!
Oh wow, he is totally kicking my butt on this! What awesome accomplishments, I have totally fallen in love with this program too!
You can jump right back on!! 😉
I have actually started trying to live more healthy myself. I plan to exercise more and drink more water!
The water part is super important here in the desert too!
I couldn’t live without Balance Rewards!
Great tips. I need to start walking more. Hoping that gardening will add some extra calories I’m hoping to lose.
First of all, kudos to your husband. I have so much respect for people who do risky jobs to protect others. We don’t have Walgreens here, but this sounds like a great program!
Thanks!!
Kind of makes me nervous at times but he’s all business!
This really is a fabulous idea & throwing in a sweepstakes is awesome!
What an awesome program, very cool!
I am such a fan of rewards programs like this – and they really work to help encourage me to shop more. And – firefighter husband?? Lucky lady 🙂
Yep! I am LOL
I totally need to sign up for this !
Registering now!!
10,000 steps per day? I think I need to buy a pedometer because I don’t think I’m even close to that! =X I’m definitely going to check out the Steps With Balance Rewards program!
I know all about old achy knees! I wanted to get some WD40 for them! 🙂
We’ve joked about that!!
You must have heard me saying out loud that I was trying to figure out this Walgreen Balance Reward thing. Ha. I just told my sister that yesterday. Thank you for being so brilliant as to use pictures with words so even I can understand. Great post.