Healthy for Life program winner

Congratulations to Paul Caligari from Dandenong Fire Station for achieving and sustaining his fitness goals through the Healthy for Life program.

CORP Health is an external organisation employed by CFA to make regular visits to stations and monitor the general health and wellbeing of our firefighters on a voluntary basis. Interested participants get the opportunity to discuss any health issues and set achievable fitness goals.

Paul Caligari, a career firefighter at Dandenong Fire Station, was recently awarded a $200 Flight Centre voucher by CORP Health in acknowledgement of his strong support of and advocacy for the program.

Below is a Q&A with Paul discussing the challenges he met since he began the program.

1. What motivated you to change your lifestyle?

Whilst routinely participating in the program a couple of years ago, the Corp Health team detected an irregularity in my blood pressure. Since then, it has been important for me to monitor the situation and adjust my lifestyle accordingly to ensure my blood pressure remains in the healthy range.

2. What has been your biggest lifestyle change?

Monitoring my cardiac health more closely and being more vigilant about what I eat. I also exercise more regularly than I did a few years ago.

3. What benefits does this have on your everyday health & wellbeing?

Improvement in strength and stamina. Also just a general improvement in my all-round health.

4. How did you achieve this goal?

Consuming less of the foods that I should not be eating and consuming more of the foods that I should be eating. Also, my wife gave the approval for me to buy a mountain bike a few years ago. I also splashed out last Christmas and bought an elliptical trainer that tends to get a fair old workout.

5. How has the Health & Fitness program benefited you?

It has elevated my awareness of my own health and wellbeing. It is also a bit of a personal challenge to try to out do my previous results in the health and fitness program run at the station. I work with a group of rather firefighters so the challenge is always on to try to out do their results also.

6. What would you say to others that were considering joining the program?

Go for it!