Category Archives: Health

Working Life, Reflections.

Posted in Health, Learning by

As I have now completed three full weeks of work and just have one week left to get through I felt like having a look at what working has been like this summer and where my condition is at the moment.

Although I knew it would be hard work, I didn’t really know how working 8 hour days, five days a week for four weeks would actually affect me. It’s been an interesting experience and I’m really pleased that I decided to do the work as now I know what I’m capable of and I have an idea of what would push me too far into exhaustion.

As I said on Wednesday, I really enjoy my job. I’ve always liked working with children; I used to volunteer at my old dance school as a teaching assistant, I did work experience in a nursery and I’ve always done a fair amount of babysitting. I find that helping children to develop their ability and improve their skills just makes me feel so satisfied, it’s a really fulfilling position as you feel as though you’ve made just a little bit of difference in their lives.

In case you’ve missed the posts in which I mentioned it, this holiday scheme is centred around arts and crafts activities. I work with the guy who runs the programme, and then three other girls around my age so it’s nice to have someone with whom you share interests to talk to in between chatting away with the children.

What’s always funny is watching the children interact, last week we had a couple of the most adorable little five-year-old girls you’ve ever seen and as best friends they did everything together. One lunch we asked them what they were playing to which one replied “I’m the mummy and she’s the baby and I’ve got 185 babies. It takes a really really long time to get all of them across the road!” It was all we could do to keep ourselves from falling about laughing. Children are hilarious.

Another of my favourite aspects of my job is when the children make you things as a present. Here are two I was given this week:

On the left: a little handmade envelope with a lovely message inside, on the right: apparently it’s a cross between a visor and a necklace… Either way it’s rather sweet!

On a slightly more serious note, I want to examine the way I feel physically after all of this. I’m not going to lie, I’m absolutely exhausted by about 11am on most days, it takes up a huge proportion of my energy just to act positive, bouncy and smiley for the remainder of the day. As well as walking around helping all the children, I play lots of games with them, we have to set everything up, and there’s a lot of clearing up and washing up to do each day. My hips ache for the first time in a while, whereas it’s usually mostly my back that pains me. My head hurts almost constantly and me knees won’t stop groaning at me.

It’s difficult but I’m so so proud of myself for pushing through it and managing to work just like any other able-bodied students. I’m planning to save as much of my earnings as possible  for the ever-nearing future.

Despite the fact that it’s tough work and I’m feeling a little worse for wear, I’m really glad I decided to work. Plus I get a couple of weeks off after I finish before I start my new term, I cannot wait to have a bit more time to relax and recuperate!

Have you ever worked with children?
What about your work makes you feel fulfilled?

Guess What?

Posted in Fitness, Food, Health, Healthy Living by

Guess what…

I joined a gym today!!

For now I’ve only signed up for a month’s membership as I don’t know what the gym at my new uni will be like but this gym is just lovely. I’m not a fan of huge, industrial-like gyms as I find them a little intimidating but this one is pretty small so suits me well. It has massive windows along one wall which overlooks the river so whilst you’re sweating away inside you can enjoy a beautiful and relaxing view. Bliss.

Another positive is that it has really nice changing rooms – good facilities, spotlessly clean, and sleek-looking. Plus they give you fluffy white towels to use.

The pool looks really inviting too so I will have to try that out sometime. There is also a jacuzzi, a sauna and a steam room which I reckon would be a lovely way to unwind after a hard workout.

Anyway as you might be able to tell, I’m pretty excited to be able to use a gym again! I’m planning to try to get there 4-5 times a week, barring any particularly difficult weeks energy wise. I’m going to take it easy to start, gradually building it back up to a level which actually feels like it does something to my fitness level (and even waist line!).

Today I took it fairly easy with 10 minutes on the elliptical, followed by 15 minutes on the stationary bike, and then a 10 minute stretch and weights session. 35 minutes in total and I have to say it felt pretty good. I might try to go back tomorrow!

 

Today’s lunch: bulgur wheat, rocket, cherry tomatoes, radish, cucumber and sun-dried tomato chicken pieces. Pretty tasty and so easy to prep each evening before bed.

Right, so here’s my little update for you today, I’m sorry my posting and commenting has been so sporadic lately – I’m constantly exhausted from work and when I get home in the evening all I want to do is read, watch cooking shows and sleep! I’ll try to be a little more present for the rest of the week.

What’s your exercise routine like at the moment?
Do you go to a gym or workout at home?
How many times a week do you workout? 

Food Lately.

Posted in Food, Health by

Hey everyone, sorry for yet another disappearance! I’ve not been very well for the past couple of days so haven’t had the energy to sit down and write a post. I’m working Monday – Friday this week with just under eight-hour days so it’s going to be a tiring week. I’m working the two following weeks too so it’s a busy month for me!

I’m feeling a little stressed at the moment because I’ve got lots to do and I’m nervous about starting at a new uni at the end of September. Plus I miss Tom a lot… Still, new and exciting prospects, plus I’ll have a little cash available!

Today’s post is going to be really brief as a) I’m absolutely exhausted and b) I’d like to watch a bit of the Olympic closing ceremony before I fall asleep. I thought I’d share some of the delicious food I’ve eaten recently with you:

 

On Friday my mother, sister and I went into town for lunch and decided to eat at Pret a Manger. For some reason I haven’t eaten there in years, it’s actually a brilliant place to grab something to eat, there are so many delicious and healthy options to choose from. I went for a crayfish and avocado salad and it was fantastic!

 

As we’ve been enjoying so much lovely weather we thought Friday evening would be the perfect time for a picnic. Our spread included a chorizo and red pepper tortilla, salamis, mini sausages and sausage rolls, falafel, veg with hummus, homemade bread and kettle chips. Delicious!

After having baked bread I felt the urge to do a bit more baking, I whipped up a chocolate banana loaf and it was so tasty. I love banana in baked goods and adding chocolate just makes the cake amazing :-P

 

 

Then yesterday I met the lovely Baiba in town for lunch and I ate some more delicious food – a caramel latte, roasted aubergines and then an apple and coconut bircher muesli which was so so good!

All in all lots of brilliant food which mostly makes up for feeling so under the weather!

Have you eaten anything really delicious lately?
Do you enjoy picnics? What is your ideal picnic food?
On another note, have you enjoyed the Olympics?

What I Ate Wednesday No.40

Posted in Cooking, Food, Health, Healthy Eating by

First off I think I owe you all a bit of an explanation. I promised that during my holidays, when I was no longer abroad, I would be posting more and would be more present in the blogworld, commenting on all of your posts and replying to everything.

I don’t really have any proper reason for my disappearance. For the last couple of days I haven’t been feeling that well and today after waking up more exhausted than when I went to bed I decided to cocoon myself in my room. I have been reading, watching Location Location Location and Gok Cooks Chinese, knitting my scarf (now finished!), decorating the front of my scrapbook and eating toast. I feel mostly better now and I can already tell the end of the week will be more positive.

My mood has also been affected by the fact that Tom left on holiday with his family for two weeks with the last time I saw him being Sunday. When he gets back I’ll be working and he’ll be house hunting in London so it’s going to be a difficult time for us. Both of us are moving forward in our lives and whilst it’s a little nerve-wracking it’s also an exciting time for us…

Anyway, enough of my rambling!

It’s time for a bit of food nosiness with WIAW.

 

Thank you to Jenn from Peas and Crayons for hosting this weekly blog link-up which allows those of us who love food just a little too much to stare at other people’s…!

One of my main summer staples is definitely fresh berries. Now I eat weetabix all year round but when most fruit is out of season I tend to have it with frozen raspberries but in the summer I love being able to eat delicious fruit with my absolute favourites being raspberries and blueberries.

This morning was mostly spent in bed reading the end of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and starting a new book on my kindle, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. I didn’t read much whilst I was away which is unusual for me, mostly because we did so much and I wanted to spend the time with Tom. However since being back and having the week off I’ve been diving into several books, next on my list are The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

As today was quite pleasant outside (not that I left the house) I went for another summer staple for lunch:

 

A lovely summery salad of rocket, cucumber, radishes, cherry tomatoes and chick breast with a lemon dressing. Delish!

This afternoon I finished off a scarf that I started knitting about two years ago and hadn’t picked up in almost as long, oops. I have to say I find knitting really therapeutic and restful. I’m really pleased with myself for finishing it and I have to say the scarf doesn’t look too bad!

I love wearing scarfs in the winter when it gets really cold and this one is so snuggly. Plus I’m not going to lie, the fact that I made it myself will make wearing it feel even better.

This evening’s dinner was actually pretty summery too, right down to the title – Summer Vegetable Stir-Fry.

This beautiful dish is a creation from my favourite cookbook, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Every! It’s made up of egg-fried rice and a melange of green summer vegetables along with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds and it’s wonderful.

All in all despite the day being a slight write-off in terms of energy levels but I’ve eaten some lovely food and still managed to do some nice things. Tomorrow I have exciting baking plans and I am determined to get in a bit of a workout to re-energise myself so fingers crossed I feel much better!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten today? And the best thing you’ve eaten this week?
Any exciting creative plans? I’ve been feeling quite inspired lately!

 

 

Practice Makes Perfect.

Posted in Health, Healthy Living, Personal by

The phrase “practice makes perfect” is usually applied to scenarios where someone is learning something or training in some way but here I mean it in a slightly different sense.

As those of you who read my blog know, I have been battling chronic pain and chronic fatigue for several years now and it is an ongoing fight. (If you are new to my blog and want to know about this then I suggest you read this post to learn a little more!)

At the moment I’ve been seeing the Pain Clinic and the physio and we have had many discussions about where my future lies, what I can do to keep fighting and making progress, and how I can work on making myself better and living as normally as possible. I am not going to lie, I feel that my chronic condition has really held me back over the past year, with my health deteriorating so much in the first term of my first year at uni the year did not go how I expected or planned.

Being on holiday and back at home has made me all the more determined to get better. In September Tom is starting his first full-time job and will be moving to London and I want to be able to visit him easily and do lots of fun things. In October I start classes at my new university and I want to be able to throw myself into my course and into extra-curricular activities. I have plans to volunteer at a primary school and maybe with a charity, I want to have the energy for that. I am going to join the local gym and I want to be able to go regularly for proper workouts.

I know, that’s a lot of ‘I wants’. But the thing is for the past year, longer really, I’ve just been settling. Settling for things which aren’t as I planned, settling for something less than I hoped for, settling for a life I wasn’t 100% happy and fulfilled by.

Whilst I know that I will probably have to live with chronic pain and fatigue for the rest of my life, that doesn’t mean they have to completely dictate my life and it’s within my power to live life to the full as much as possible. I don’t want to spend my life regularly relying on people to help me with things, having to constantly make compromises and not being able to do the things I love.

I am not in denial. I know how difficult this is going to be and I know that there will be days and even sometimes weeks when I struggle and feel awful but I don’t have to constantly live as though I am an invalid.

With chronic conditions there are always periods of remission followed by periods of relapse, it’s just the way things are. I just want the remission to be the more significant part of my life. I want to feel healthy and able-bodied, I want to be happy with myself.

This is where the practice comes in.

Recovery and remission is not instant. It doesn’t just suddenly all clear up. Although some of it is just down to your body working better, a lot of it is down to the individual. Healthy living is so important for combating chronic fatigue and exercise really helps with the pain too. Equally your mental attitude can make an enormous difference to how you feel physically.

If I were to give into the pain and exhaustion, to just let my family, friends and Tom do everything for me, if I didn’t push myself to work, to study and to pursue my hobbies, I have absolutely no doubt that I would be worse and this is something my pain consultant wholeheartedly agrees with. It isn’t easy, you have to work past the lower levels of tiredness and aching. But it’s so worth it to be able to live the life you enjoy.

So I will practice pushing myself in a healthy way; not going to extreme to the point that my energy levels drop below around 20% or my pain levels rise above 8/10, but merely gradually doing more.

I will have goals to work towards, building up my physical ability and my day-to-day energy levels. I will make life worth living. I will live the way I love to be, I will make the most of all of the wonderful positive things I have and I will be healthy and happy.

I will beat this.

What I Ate Wednesday No.38 + a Fitness Update.

Posted in Fitness, Food, Friends, Health by

Okay so I said you would be getting lots of posts from me and then I disappeared for two days so apologies. In my defense I’ve been having a really lovely couple of days, I was too busy enjoying life to blog!

I can’t stay away from here for too long though. In the year that I’ve been blogging now I’ve come to absolutely love the blogworld, it’s such a great part of my life – so fulfilling and enjoyable. I love writing my posts, reading other people’s blogs and getting to connect with others all over the world :-)

I owe some of this connection to the fantastic WIAW!

Go check out the lovely Jenn’s blog to find out what this is all about and to discover heaps of other foodie bloggers…

Breakfast this morning was my typical sort of start to the day:

Weetabix soaked in milk and topped with blueberries and cinnamon. As is fitting with this month’s WIAW theme of food and fitness I enjoyed breakfast with a side of this month’s Women’s Fitness. I’m not that much of a magazine person, I tend to prefer home decoration magazines to fashion but I do rather like receiving my monthly dose of glossy fitness info. It’s a little treat as I never really expect it.

Today was centred around a great trip into town to meet my friends from my old sixth form for lunch and then to see Ice Age 4 (don’t mock our film choice, it was a nice bit of light-hearted fun!). I love meeting up with my lovely girls (plus a couple of boyfriends) and I was having so much fun that I completely forgot to take any photos of my food! It was such a fab lunch, we chatted away for about two hours and I had a brilliant dessert – a cinnamon waffle with vanilla ice cream. I wish I could show you a photo but I was clearly a useless blogger today…

This month’s WIAW is all about the fitness as well as the food so I thought I’d update you a little on my exercise at the moment.

You may have noticed an absence of ‘Weekly Workout’ posts over the past couple of weeks and this is because at the moment the physical aspect of my life has had to change a little. Last week I had an appointment with my physiotherapist and we discussed how I have been over the past few months, looking especially at my energy, activity and pain levels. Now first of all let me tell you something, it is really really difficult to give your energy levels as a percentage or to express your level of pain as a number out of 10! We established that at the moment the thing I am struggling with the most is my energy levels on a day-to-day basis so this is what we want to target.

However, this is easier said than done. I won’t bore you with all of the details (if  you’re particularly interested drop me a message and I can explain in full!) but basically we’ve brought things right back to the basics and I am on a fairly strict regime of 15 minutes of medium cardio, 5 times a week. Those of you who know me reasonably well will know that although I often struggle to workout lots, I actually really enjoy exercising! So you can imagine it’s pretty frustrating to only be able to do a tiny 15 minute workout, especially on days when I’m raring to go. But this being said, I am willing to give almost anything a go if it will help me to have an easier life!

Anyway that is what I am currently doing and I am also keeping an hourly activity log (time-consuming and pretty dull) which should hopefully help me to be able to gradually build up my activity levels and therefore my energy levels!

Now, back to the food :-P

This evening’s meal was almost as enjoyable as the lunch with my friends.

This beautiful bowl is full of potato gnocchi, slices of delicious chorizo and shredded courgette. It is such a fantastic dish – I love the mixture of flavours and it just tastes like summer.

I’ve ended up posting this really late so I am going to say goodnight and tuck myself in to get a good night’s sleep!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten today?
Have you seen any films recently?
Do you have an exercise routine? If yes, what’s it like at the moment?

Weekly Workouts #3.

Posted in Fitness, Health, Healthy Living by

Hello lovely readers!

When this post goes up I shall be enjoying my penultimate day in Paris! I thought that as I am returning on the Tuesday I would still plan my week of workouts as it is one of my goals for July. I really enjoy having a set plan for my exercise as it helps me to stay motivated throughout the week and I always feel a sense of achievement if I manage to carry most of them out. However I also don’t beat myself up if it doesn’t quite go to plan – sometimes things pop up that result on things needing to be reorganised and that’s fine. When you’re battling with a conditional like fibro or CFS then you have to be prepared for days which basically end up being right-offs (like most of last week!). I think accepting this has really helped me to stay focused on the positive days.

No doubt the trip to Paris will leave me feeling pretty exhausted as we will be doing a lot of walking so I’m going to keep this week light and manageable. It would be great to actually succeed in completing every single workout I have planned!

Monday –  Lots and lots of walking around Paris!

Tuesday – 20 min stretch session

Wednesday – 30 Day Shred

Thursday – 30 min upper body workout + 2/3 mile cycle

Friday – 20 min stretch + ab work session

Saturday – Rest Day

Sunday – Rest Day

I know this plan looks quite heavy in the middle of the week compared to the weekend but this is because I may well be off to visit my grandparents that weekend where I can’t really workout so I’m just calling those rest days. I need to take some time off anyway at the moment as my strength is pretty poor.

Hopefully I’ll manage this week as I’ve only really planned three proper workouts, I think if I’m careful with myself then I should be fine!

I hope that you have all had a fantastic weekend, I can’t wait to get back and catch up with you all :-) In the next few days you can be sure to expect posts full of beautiful photos of Paris, I will definitely be sharing all of the wonderful things we did on our trip!

What’s your week of workouts looking like?
Do you schedule rest days? How do you deal with being inactive?