NRECA Employee Benefits Weekly

Rewards for Life Co-ops Win Big with the SMART Challenge

Posted on Posted in Group Benefits, Well-being

On Monday, June 20, the NRECA POWER Wellness Team and our partners—MyHealth Coaches® and WebMD—announced the winners of the 2016 SMART® Challenge, a 12-week challenge for Rewards for Life® participating cooperatives that ran from February through April. Participants could enroll in a step challenge, weight coaching or both for the chance to win Fitbit™ and gift card prizes while improving their health. Throughout the challenge, 1,085 participants increased their daily steps, ate right, worked with dietitian health coaches to lose weight and made healthful choices.

SMART Challenge participants achieved several milestones:

  • They walked a total of 418 million steps as a group, which will get you around Earth 8 times!
  • 107 people walked over 1 million steps!
  • As a group (based on those who self-reported their weight), participants trimmed 3,013 pounds, which is, on average, a loss of 4% body weight per person.

The individuals with the most steps won Fitbit Charge HR devices:

  1. Kathy Wilson, Carteret-Craven Electric, NC, with 3.3 million steps
  2. Keli Call, Mid-South Synergy, TX, with 2.76 million steps
  3. David Sweat, Roosevelt County Electric, NM, with 2.69 million steps

Three women and three men in weight management coaching from MS, NE, NJ, NM, TX and WA lost the highest percent of their body weight among challenge participants—upwards of 13%—across the 12-week challenge. Here’s what one had to say about how he was able to achieve his goal:

“I learned to set my goal and work it one day at a time (no carry over uneaten or burned calories). The absolute honesty of the daily Fitbit logs keeps you on track. You just have to have the mindset to “earn” every calorie that you eat. The thing that helped me do that was to exercise early in the day to kick start my daily calorie bank and keep moving throughout the day.”

The co-ops with the highest percentage of eligible Rewards for Life participants who completed the SMART Challenge will have a $2,000 donation made in their name to the charity of their choice from MyHealth Coaches and NRECA’s POWER Wellness Program:

  • Charles Mix Electric, SD
  • Carteret-Craven Electric, NC
  • Central Electric Cooperative, PA

The POWER Wellness team congratulates the winners and every single SMART Challenge participant for putting in the effort to improve their health and well-being.

If you’re interested in learning more about joining Rewards for Life, email wellnessprogram@nreca.coop or call 703.907.6237.

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