Jessica’s wellbeing story

Jessica lives in a supported living household in Wheatley. Jessica decided that she wanted to get more fit and healthy, but she had found it a struggle to keep up with exercise.

Jessica’s support team suggested to her that having a volunteer buddy through our Ways to Wellness Programme could help her to feel more motivated and positive. Jessica decided to go for it and was buddied up with Style Acre volunteer Emma! Emma and Jessica meet once per week on Zoom – they chat and do fun exercise like dance and yoga. The brilliant support team at the house have been helping Jessica to take part in the Zoom sessions. They’ve also been supporting Jessica to use her cross trainer and exercise bike.

Through this, Jessica has found new fun ways to exercise. One day Jessica did about 4 hours of dancing! She was so motivated and loved it so much! More recently, Jessica and Emma have been able to meet up for a walk together, which they both really enjoyed.

Jessica says: “I have found losing weight really quite hard, but I am keeping it up now. I enjoy exercising. I’ve been walking with the dog and Emma. I’ve been doing yoga and dancing with Emma too. I’ve been using my exercise bike and the cross trainer. I do it enjoy it so much. Everyone can do it!”

As well as exercising, Jessica has been enjoying cooking lots of new food and healthy recipes with her support team. Her favourite is sausage and onion plait. She’s also made chicken and mushroom pie, and prawn pasta parcels. Jessica also enjoys growing veg in her garden.

Jessica says: “I keep telling all the staff to eat healthy!” Claire (Support Worker) said: “She’s put me to shame so much that I’ve started losing weight too. I’ve lost 2 stone too. Between us, we’re doing really well. She’s a real inspiration. If Jess can do it, we can all do it.”

Since taking up more exercise, Jessica is really proud to have lost 4 1/2 stone and to have gone down three dress sizes. Not only that, she is inspiring others to join her in getting healthier and happier by becoming a Ways to Wellness Star! These are people who have done really well at being healthy and happy. They share their stories with others and get involved with planning our monthly wellbeing activities.

Jessica’s volunteer buddy Emma says:

“Each week me and Jess do a Zoom meeting and we do some kind of exercise, whether it’s dancing or yoga. I’m sure we’re going to come up with more and more fun things to do because that’s the best way to exercise. And recently we’ve actually been able to go for a walk, which was weird to do that (after so much Zoom), but really good. And going into the sessions, I was just really not doing any exercise over lockdown because all my sports were cancelled. I had no motivation, no reason to do anything. But having a session to look forward to every week has just motivated me so much ‘coz I know it’s not just for me, Jess is exercising and Jess is insanely motivating with her diet and her exercising. That just makes me want to be better with it too. So it’s really helped me, I feel so much happier, so much healthier. I’m doing so much more exercise and I really enjoy the sessions. I hope that Jess feels the same! … It’s really fun and I encourage anyone who’s thinking of doing a buddying thing to do it!”

Well done Jessica, what an inspiration you are!