JP is married, has a 15-year-old son, and lives in Alabama. As he’s gotten older, JP has made it a priority to improve his health status. He enjoys running 5Ks. This is his story.
How did you find out about Livongo?
About a year ago, I got a notification in the mail that I could get the Livongo scale and it was part of my health insurance. Key thing has been weight management. I’ve been trying to get that in better control and improve my physicality.
What’s your motivation?
When I was young, I ran. I stopped running for a while because I had knee issues and thought about how it’d be nice to be able to walk as an old man. Now that I’m getting to be an old man, I thought, well, I have a young son, so it’d be nice to be here and enjoy his life when he starts growing up. I have to refocus what I’ve done to make sure I have that strength and ability to move later on in life.
Tell us about your experience with Livongo after you decided to sign up.
I checked it out and I liked it. I started setting things up online and I saw that I had the opportunity for coaching as well, and I thought that would be a great thing. I actually started to talk to one of the coaches about what I should be focusing on diet-wise and working on making improvements. In talking to my coach for a while and talking about some of my goals and trying to concentrate on the running side, she actually set me up with another coach who was a marathon runner who would have even more detailed knowledge on what I was trying to do. That showed quite a bit of integrity from the first coach, knowing that she could do this but knew someone else who may be a better fit.
My second coach, Julie, not only had the dietary information, but also had the experience with running and some of the quirks that go along with that and some of the things you have to do to get into the race format. So that was doubly beneficial.
What kind of changes have you made?
It’s helped me a lot. I’m probably a tough candidate for a coach because I don’t like anything that’s good for me. So they had to work with that. All the things they wanted to prescribe was stuff that I didn’t want to do. So we had an honest conversation about that. They were able to help me work around that. We looked at better food choices, focusing on my proteins, adding in other vegetables and citrus, and figuring out a snack format to keep my energy up during the day. Julie really helped me with the fueling for the races better. At the time I still wanted to lose weight, so I had to make sure I ate protein to help with building and recovery so my calories would be different than normal.
What’s the best part about Livongo?
The personal time with the coach and fine-tuning of what I’m doing. A generic eating plan just doesn’t do me any good. That’s just going to fail for me 99 times out of 100. Getting to sit down with them, they help me personalize food strategies so that they work. Not only did it work for the numbers, but it worked with my pickiness and for what I wanted to eat.
What do you tell people about Livongo?
I’ve been really happy with it. To me, having the opportunity to have a dietary consultant is phenomenal. It’s helped me to get away from following bad advice from people who don’t have the knowledge. Talking to people who knew what they were talking about was a game changer for me.
How have you changed?
I’ve gotten down 15 pounds. Improved my running game. My overall conditioning was improving because I was doing the right things. I was fueling myself in a better way. My runs were getting better and I was getting stronger. I was able to put more into it and was still able to maintain the energy levels to drive forward, and that has been the biggest change within the past year.
I’ve been really happy with Livongo. Julie has really been top notch. Since I’ve been working with her, that has just been a tremendous add-on that has helped me go beyond the norm. I can’t say enough about her.
PM10694.A