The Screaming Viking

I’ve chronicled on here before about how I was going round and round with this health club reimbursement thing.  My biggest problem is the lack of clarity about the process you need to go through and what would happen in the end.  It’s possible things are spelled out in a letter that is mailed out…but I highly doubt it.  The wife read the only letter I got (she hasn’t received one yet) and told me to fill out some health risk assessment thing and that was it.  So I do that…and wait and wait and wait…nothing.

I called them around mid feb to see what was up.  Apparently the issue was I had not submitted my health risk assessment on “time”.  Apparently the paperwork for the health club comes through between the 1st and 10th of the month and it’s processed on the 10th.  One of the checks is if that assessment is done…if it’s not the payment fails.  The only problem is…I’m not informed on failure…from anyone.  the health club doesn’t tell me, the company administering the kick back doesn’t tell me…no one communicates the information.

I go to the website to find some information…there is none.  I find a number and decide to give them a call…not like I’ve got work to do or anything huh!  They refer me to the people that administer the payments the Nation independent Healthclub Association, 866-484-9173.  I give them a call and the fun begins…

From what I gather, the office is run by 1 person…or that’s how it seems anyway.  The woman takes my information and tells me she will need to call me back…fine I get that.  She calls me back and basically tells me I suck.  She said I didn’t do the paperwork on time and would need to have the health club resubmit.  I ask her where the information is available to me to know I need to have certain things done by certain dates…I get told I need to have the health club resubmit my dates of visit…/me sighs.  I tell her this is way too much bullshit to deal with for 20 bucks and hang up.  I’m not very delicate dealing with people that piss me off.  Beyond that, I figure the next month things will work themselves out.  As it happens the Friday before we take off for the cities we are working out later in the morning and some blonde chic walks in to Snap and starts doing employee work.  I asked her if she was the manager, she was so I asked if she could resubmit for some date…she said it wasn’t a problem.

In the mean time I’d gotten a call back from the website people asking me about my customer experience.  I told them it sucked and told them why it sucked.  She was pretty customer service oriented and wanted to get the other place on the phone so we could have a 3-way call to figure things out.  I thanked her but said I don’t really have any more time during the business day to waste on this crap.  She reiterated that next month things should go through fine, payment should be through between the 20th and 25th.

I waited until March 2nd and via the prodding of a buddy who likes to see me get riled up…called to see why I hadn’t received any reimbursement yet.  I called the website people who referred me to the NIHCA people.  A lady there took my information and said they would have to call me back.  She said she would get with me in 20min.  3hrs later some other lady calls me back, no apology for the wait, and tells me that someone else would have to call me tomorrow morning…no apology for the delay.  10min later she calls me back, apparently she had miraculously found some information, and tells me the health club had been paid directly for my visits and that I need to talk to them….wtf?  She said they should charge me 20 bucks less for the following month, and asks me what date I pay them.  I told her “hell if I know, it’s all automatic on my CC”  “most people know when they pay their dues”  Clearly this woman has wonderful C.S. skills.  She told me that since they paid the health club I would need to contact the health club about all this if there was a problem….

The problem with all this is I’m expected to monitor my CC statement and look for a charge that isn’t right.  If it appears I’m suppose to contact someone to verify a payment was made from one place to another on my behalf…this makes no sense at all.  I can maybe/kinda/sorta /not really see why they wouldn’t want to send the money to the user directly….but there should be some way for me to monitor that my information has been sent out.  I set this crap up every day at work.  An automated email to a users address saying “XX visits recorded (dates), $XX sent to (health club) (date)”.  I would still be in the position of having to look at my CC occasionally for this one specific charge…but at least I’d have some sort of record to go back to…right now I’ve nothing.

At this point I’m pretty pissed about this setup.  There is no reason something like this needs to be so complicated.  I fired off a complaint via the website form…but I doubt anything will come of it…

I have been going around and around trying to get the health club reimbursement setup.  I contacted 866-300-6949 and they tell me to contact 866-484-9173 who says they will call me back in 20min…3hrs later they call me back to tell me some administrator will call me back in the morning.  10min later they call me back to tell me that they pay the health club directly and did so on the 25th of Feb.  They inform me that it then becomes my responsibility to make sure the health club doesn’t “double charge” me as that money that was given to them is “mine” in a sense.  It has now become my responsibility to monitor if the health club is charging me correctly.  The problem with this is I have no way to verify if they have received this 20 buck reimbersement on my behalf.

I’ve setup my membership to the health club to be as non-invasive to me as possible.  I signed up for a year at 20 bucks a month…good deal if I get the 20 buck credit right?  The monthly dues are auto-drawn from my credit card.  Now I have to monitor for that charge.  If it gets charged I then have to go back up the chain to see who screwed up…

Is this seriously the best system we could come up with?  The lack of information provided to the user is almost comical.  We’re only talking about 20/mo here, but for something that is suppose to be an incentive to work out and stay fit this has turned into something disgusting.

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I’m on a down swing in my workout routine.  I’m not seeing big results on the scale and things are getting to be monotonous.  I realized the other day that I was using the balance scale incorrectly…once I started using things correctly it added 12 pounds to my overall weight.  I still lost 2lbs last week…but seeing the number go up instead of down was just a killer.  I had passed what I considered quite a milestone, only to see it “taken away”.

The weekend was rough, in 4 days I got 2 workouts in for 40min each…I just had no motivation.  I think a lot of it comes from not seeing the drastic results now like I was before.  My clothes have fit pretty much the same for quite a while now, the scale went up (actually went down…but the psychological effect was “up”), and I’m getting irritated about not being able to eat whatever I want.  My knee is also turning into a larger problem.  It pops and snaps now anytime I straighten it out.  I wouldn’t call it painful yet, but there is a sensation from the pop.  It’s very similar to when you pop your knuckles, only it happens all the time.  It is a bit concerning.  I am holding out hope that I can drop weight and rehab it a bit, but more and more that seems like it’s only delaying the inevitable.  Surgery is seeming more and more like a foregone conclusion.  I think there’s been too much weight on it for too long.  Hopefully I can drop weight and build strength back in the knee quickly enough that it doesn’t impact the other one.  I’m hoping to have a doc look at it the beginning of next year and if something needs to be done to it have it worked on in the spring.  I don’t want to struggle with crutches on the ice, and I want to make sure I have a solid healthy foundation to try and work through the down time. Read the rest of this entry »

As of the Thursday weight in I had dropped 70lbs.  I’m basing this on the readings from the balance scale which I believe to be accurate.  I had a 4lb loss over the course of a week (Thursday to Thursday).  I credit this largely to the livestrong site.  I came in quite a bit under the line they established for me, so maybe I should have been down more but without the site I wouldn’t be as aware of what I’m putting in my mouth and how it relates to the daily workouts.  My goal was 5lbs and I hit 4…so I’m good with that.

The weekend didn’t work out so hot for me.  I had a good time, but I consumed a bit too much and didn’t work out as much as I would have liked to.  I got 30min in on Saturday, but the elliptical was quite a bit different than the one I’m used to.  The one’s at snap seem to simulate a cross country skiing type motion but the ones at the hotel simulate a running motion.  I couldn’t get the motion down and didn’t really get the work out I would have liked.  I also credit this new motion for putting stress on my knee that I wasn’t used to.  That along with the plethora of steps at the sporting events really fubar’d my knee.  I didn’t work out on Sunday, I was lazy…all my fault.  Can’t blame anyone or anything else.

I posted on fb about the couple of nagging “hurts” (I can’t classify them as injuries yet), my wrist and my knee.  I can’t do much about my knee, but I can help my wrist a bit.  I blogged a little bit ago about those lifting gloves I bought with the wrist straps.  Before I started lifting I tightened up the straps and made sure it came across the part of my wrist area where my hand would rest on the straps while I’m working out.  To my surprise, this helped immensely.  I didn’t even notice any twinges at all.  I pushed 275 for 8 reps this morning.

I need to rededicate myself to this workout routine.  I’ve been getting a solid work out in each day, but my two a days are not happening.  My goal this week is to hit 2 a day every day.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been tracking what I’ve been eating on the livestrong.com site for a week now…and wow what an eye opener.  To hit my goal of losing 5lbs a week I need to stay under the 1300 calorie bar (1282 actually).  Anytime I have tried to lose weight in the past it has seemed like such a guessing game.  Laying things out in a simple to understand equation have made what I need to do so much clearer.  I don’t think it’s “accurate” but I do believe it gives a good generalization of what’s going on.

This has also shown me just how important my two-a-day workouts are.  On the days where I only get one work out in I’m right up against the bar or just over.  And while I’ve been under the magic 2000 cal a day mark…I don’t think just being under that is going to drop the pounds I want to.  On the days where I have hit the two-a-day goal I have been well under the bar…two of the days I have burnt more calories than I have taken in.  As I’ve said previously, though I don’t think the numbers are accurate I think they give a good representation of what’s going on.  I believe carrying a negative balance for the day is a good thing for my body at this point.  I don’t think I’ll hit the starvation switch…and I think as long as I am eating and working hard it will cut in to the fat that permeates my physique.

I really like the comparison this site makes to your daily intake, the amount you burn doing specific work outs, and the number their “science” says you should hit to achieve your goals.  Last week I was doing a piss poor job of keeping my intake down and wasn’t getting in all the working out I need…and it showed when it came time to step on the scale.  I didn’t go up, but I only went down 2lbs.  While that is an acceptable number for sustained results, I do believe that if I more closely reign in my consumption and stay focused on working out I can easily hit the 5lbs a week mark.  I believe 5lbs a week is sustainable till sub 300, then I expect to drop back to 3lbs a week.

I also no longer think I need 2 work outs a day per se, but I need to have a “how hard I work” goal for those workouts.  I think if I burn 2-3k calories over the course of the day along with the carefully monitored intake I should be pretty much on track.  Right now I’m not at a point where I can reasonably burn 2k calories in a session…I’m doing around 1500 if I push really hard (which isn’t too tough honestly).  In another month or so I’m hoping I can get to 2k a session doing cardio.  I’m thinking that my calories burnt during a work out will go down as my weight goes down though.  I’m not sure that a guy at 250 can reasonably burn 1500/hr even if he appears to be busting his ass as much as a fat man is.

We’ll see, a lot of trial and error involved in this.