How Edunne Patz achieved 163 consecutive Vitality Active Rewards goals

Edunne Patz has achieved an incredible feat - reaching 163 consecutive goals on Vitality Active Rewards and never missing a single week. We caught up with him to find out how he did it.

Edunne Patz - like so many of us - tends to curse and moan when his alarm wakes him at the crack of dawn for his morning run. Yet he does it, day after day, and as a result has never missed his weekly goal on Vitality Active Rewards (VAR).

"At the outset, let me make it clear that I'm not a superfood-eating, Bikram yoga-meditating, Iron Man-competing health nut by any stretch of the imagination," jests the 41-year-old IT lawyer. "I'm pretty much a regular guy who's been able to use the Vitality Active Rewards incentive programme as a catalyst to improve my health and wellbeing."

Patz has achieved his 163 consecutive goals by doing cardio and free weight exercises at the gym, road running and increasing his daily and weekly step count by walking more: "Many a cold, dark winter morning I've wanted nothing more than to roll over and turn up the electric blanket when my 5:30 am alarm goes off for my scheduled run - but the drive to achieve another weekly goal somehow gets me out of bed and onto the road, improving my cardiovascular health rather than catching a few extra ZZZs."

Despite his busy schedule as an IT lawyer and partner at Harty Rushmere, Patz chooses to prioritise the good things in life: "I've been an ardent practitioner of karate since the age of seven and I hold a black belt in the Shotokan style. I've also fairly recently gotten back into playing tennis regularly. I'm also passionate about travel, having been bitten by the bug at an early age. Other than that, I try to live a balanced life and enjoy the company of friends and family, dining out, going to the cinema and theatre."

His key to success is simple - make healthy living a priority: "If you see exercise or sport as merely a fun, frivolous, discretionary activity, it will tend to take a backseat to everything else; however, if you view regular exercise as an essential antidote to the ills of modern living, you will find the time to work it into your schedule."

Patz says that living a healthy lifestyle is about making small, meaningful lifestyle changes: "I've gradually come to realise the critical need for all of us to make conscious, positive changes to counteract the toxic effects of the modern, sedentary, Western lifestyle. In particular, I've been alarmed at the research coming out in recent years that highlights how damaging it is to our health to sit at a desk for hours on end every day - as I do in my profession. By actively making positive lifestyle choices to improve my health through being more active, I've gained rewards and benefits that far exceed those offered by Discovery."

When he first activated the Apple Watch benefit, a friend told him that he'd never achieve more than a handful of goals before starting to pay for the device. "That pretty much sealed the deal and, two years later, it gave me tremendous pleasure to tell him that I hadn't paid in a cent towards my prized gadget," he says. "To be honest, I never really thought it was realistic to achieve a year's worth of consecutive goals, let alone two. But, since proving both myself and the sceptics wrong, I just kept going and now I'm just curious how long I can keep it up."

A self-confessed technophile, Patz uses a range of gadgets to track his exercise activities, including his:

• Polar H7 heart rate monitor - coupled with the Polar Beat app on his iPhone
• Apple Watch 3 Nike+
• Apple's Health and Activity apps
• The Discovery app to keep track of progress, track trends and look for areas that need improvement
• The Nike Run Club app to log his runs and keep track of the mileage on his Nike shoes
• GymGoal Pro to keep track of gym workouts

A normal guy with a competitive streak, Patz shares his goals for 2019: "Besides trying to keep my Vitality Active Rewards streak going for as long as possible, I'd like to build on the gains I've achieved so far and further improve my cardiovascular fitness and overall conditioning."