Tag: fitness

I’m a teeny bit competitive

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I am a competitive person. I have been for a long time and since being at uni it’s definitely increased. Partly my need to achieve and be the best is to shut up my anxiety and depression who like the tell me that I’m shit but it’s got to this competitive stage, even though I’d never be mean about it. The person I’m the absolute worst to is myself, I am super competitive with me!

Today I was in my 2nd gym class and I’ve started taking into account the little exercise I can do as well as keeping track of what I’m eating and trying to control my portion sizes as well as make better choices. With that in mind and the fact that I already had physio yesterday I did something a little silly, I pushed myself too much. I was getting so happy to see the numbers going up and just the thought of being able to fit into some of my favourite clothes just spurred me on a little too much.

I’m pretty sore right now but I’ve learnt my lesson and I won’t over do it again. I’ve been very strict with myself about numbers, I don’t need anything else negative in my life or anything I could control in a bad way so I banned scales. I don’t have any in my flat apart from kitchen ones on purpose because I know that I would just constantly weigh myself, compare myself and get stupidly anxious over it and then cry and be unhappy, no matter how thin I was.

So in a way I’m doing this blind, there’s no number here. I have a rough idea of what I weighed a while ago and after the end of my sessions I will try on my dress and possibly look when I’m at my parents house but there will be NO obsessive checking because I got absorbed with weight as a teenager. That’s the lovely part of being a teenager, puppy fat, bullying, being told to go to weight watchers, all lovely stuff. The best thing about this recovery is there’s no pressure, just support. I chose to take the class, I’m choosing what I eat and what portion size I want and when I want a day off and a take away.

So maybe I need to work on being a little less competitive for all of this to work and stop being so hard on myself. After all this is recovery, not the Olympics and hopefully it will do wonders for my stress levels too!

The Gym: Let’s do this.

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This morning I crawled out of bed after being awake for most of the night. I was tired, nervous and excited. After 7 months of not being allowed to push myself, of having to watch for signs that my legs were giving up and tense doctors appointments I got to go into a supervised gym class with a physio instructor. I wrote about my body  and its changes this week as well, which had such an incredible response from all over the world. I knew I had to write about this too but I was so nervous. I really didn’t want to have to stop after a few exercises or for my leg to go completely numb so that I fall over.

I turned up in my matching gym clothes and was the youngest one there, mostly OAPs, one man who I’d say was in his 30s with a leg injury and a woman in her 30s who came in later. To say I was self conscious was an understatement and when we started warm up I started to panic, it was painful and I couldn’t keep up very easily.  As we moved on to the machines I needed a little bit of help going through my routine.

For now it consists of 2-3 minutes on each machine/ activity and I mix them up with how I feel:

Cross Trainer

Exercise Bike level 3

Balancing on a ball board (I don’t know the proper name for this)

Marching while doing weights on a trampoline

Holding my balance on an exercise ball while lifting weights

Sitting on an exercise ball and catching a ball that is either thrown to me or I catch after throwing it at the wall

Rising on my toes (aided) holding and going back down

While this week I had to do them in burst and I could only do each one once in the session each week I will build this up and by the end of my 6 weeks I should be able to do all of them a few times in the session! I left completely covered in sweat, tired but really happy. I finally felt like I’d achieved something and although I was pretty sore I was ok, I could still walk which was a bonus. I had about an hour to get back, have a shower and be on the bus to uni, believe me a shower has never felt so good in all my life.

My next stop was the university doctor, again. I have reviews pretty regularly for my medication and generally how I’m doing. This time it was another increase in medication, this time to help me sleep. The pain in the day I’m pretty much stuck with and just have to take both the good and the bad days, do my physio and wait it out. Not sleeping because of the pain is an entirely different thing, if I don’t sleep it affects my mood, I quickly get very depressed and lose all motivation to do anything so making such I’m not kept awake all night is a priority. My dose of both my Dihydrocodine and Gabapentin have gone up at night and I have another check in two weeks.

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I also made it through my lecture without falling asleep too although I wasn’t really myself. All aside this spine focused day has given me some hope and don’t tell anyone but I actually quite liked going to the gym to start my day. When I have a bigger place/ am better I would definitely like to get a Cross trainer for me at home. So that’s the start of my gym time done and I’m kind of looking forward to next week although I may change my mind on that tomorrow…

This is my body

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I’ve been thinking about my body a lot lately. Over the last 7 months I’ve seen it change and adapt so that it can heal, I’ve felt it slow down and been crippled by pain, I’ve seen it expand in the mirror. To say that I’ve been upset about it would be an understatement, combined it wrecked my confidence. How could I be seen with my stunning friends when my skin was marked by the way it had to stretch? How could I pretend to not see when guys would look at them and look past me being the chubby one. It made me angry because I never used to care so why did I now?

Tomorrow I start the gym for my physio sessions, which is a huge part of my recovery. It’s taken 7 long months of small stretches and exercises, acupuncture and pain. While watching Caitlin Moran last night (this is the video that inspired me) I had a realisation. While she stood up and showed her stomach off to the huge crowd and just went this is me I had a feeling burst inside me. She doesn’t give a shit, so why should I? Why should I get teary because I put on weight while my body was you know putting one of the most important bones in my body back together.

So here is the scary bit…this is my belly, something that caused me a lot of upset over the years…

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There you go, that’s it my tum after a lot of healing. I don’t know, looking at it why I get so freaked out and angry at myself. I look at these pictures and think to myself I really like my curves and it’s just what it is. I’m not going into that gym to boast on Instagram and Twitter about how healthy I am, about my fabulous weight loss (if that happens). I’m going to the gym to continue to fix my body after trauma, to build muscle back where it’s gone. If I lose some fat, that’s fine but I’ve decided that it’s no longer my aim.

I don’t want to get into that dangerous territory where I start getting controlling over what I eat again. I know how dangerous that can be especially when you’re already trying to get through depression because you start hating and taking out your sadness on your body. Been there, done that.

I’m fully aware that this post might get some negative responses, that I’m fat, I’m ugly. Whatever. If this makes one person feel better about their body, male or female, then I’m pleased I wrote this. I’m going to try my hardest not to let my body let me down yes I’m bigger than I was and covered in stretch makes but you know what putting a spine back together makes my body pretty cool.

This is my body and I’m proud of it, fuck what anyone else thinks and I hope you can feel that way too.

The Little Mermaid Returns

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I’m sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday, I was reading the amazing Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls which I can’t wait to review because it was absolutely incredible. I’ll leave you with that because that’s for another blog completely. I wish I was writing to tell you about a new Ariel film, because that would be one of the best pieces of news this year. The mermaid I’m talking about is me. I don’t have flippers but as a kid I might as well have done. My poor Dad spent hours and hours trying to teach me how to swim on top of the water but I just never liked it. Instead I would race around the bottom of the pool getting as deep as I possibly could. So when I started only swimming under water as well as the singing thing and being obsessed with Ariel my nickname came about. But what does that have to do with today?

Today, something awesome happened. After three months I finally got to go back to the pool. I wasn’t going to initially because it was rainy and a perfect book day but then I remembered how upset I got yesterday about my weight gain and decided I’d try and go for a swim. I was beyond nervous and had these terrified thoughts that I’d end up trapped in the pool because I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out at the end (as you can tell I’m writing this and don’t seem traumatised, I was able to get out). As you can imagine my swimming costume was a little bit more snug than I’d hope but it’s to be expected.

I got in the water and …

‘ the little mermaid animated GIF ‘

Ok, so maybe it was that glamourous but the point is I finally got to swim again! I could only manage 25 minutes instead of my normal hour but I did it and even though I left fairly sore and absolutely exhausted (oh and accidently grabbed someone in the pool…) I just had this huge smile on my face as I left. I felt like my body was working with me for once instead of against me. I may have come home and had to lie down and fall asleep for a few hours but it’s a start. My back isn’t feeling it’s greatest right now but I’m pleased that I got those 25 minutes and even a go in the wave pool (very therapeutic).

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Absolutely exhausted after, but smiling! 

I’m really hoping this is the start of a good week and trying to combat my lows. With a day to myself tomorrow, work Tuesday, another unplanned day Wednesday, band practice Thursday and my sister coming to stay from Friday I’m going to be pretty busy. BUT! Don’t fear about the blog I have a lot of ideas and plans to keep you all entertained. I also want to thank all the great bloggers I’ve been talking to lately, you’re all amazing!

Until tomorrow guys!

I miss fitness! My thoughts on ‘being brave’ and keeping going.

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Now I’ve said before that I’m not a health and fitness fanatic. If there was an option between a healthy snack and something covered in chocolate I’d bite your hand off for the chocolate. I made some healthier choices this year, I walked to uni most days (unless it was a Thursday morning, early starts after a late night are not a good idea), I swam occasionally and for the first time in my life I embraced a sport and did it every week. I’m also stubborn and have a rebellious streak. Normally if someone told me that I wasn’t allowed to ride I’d prove them wrong and get on, going twice as fast. I can’t do that right now.

To say that all this stress hasn’t been easy is an understatement. It’s not in the way that people see it. I keep getting told that I’m brave, that I’m so inspiring. To be honest I find it incredible that people are so sympathetic to me fracturing my spine but 6 years of mental health problems didn’t get any cards or bravery speeches, but that’s another blog post. I mean yeah I suppose to other people they really can’t imagine just getting on with life after breaking a vital part of your body, but do I feel brave? No. I just feel like I’m getting on with it. It’s something I spoke to my parents about the other day after people were told about me and just were amazed. It was nice and they were lovely people but I just said to my parents, wouldn’t everyone just get on with their lives? Apparently not, but I was raised to just battle on through.

So after yesterday’s post it’s clear that I’m still up and down, still getting there. Today a low decided to hit. I think it’s post festival blues, combined with stressing about the future and being tired from my back pain. It was relatively normal stuff and I wasn’t miserable or ‘meh’ all day, it was more when I was alone. I realised that the things I’d normally do when I feel bad, I couldn’t do and it just made me want to curl up under my duvet and cry. I didn’t. I finished the book I started reading last night and spoke to a few friends.

I never realised that exercise was something I’d miss, but then again I suppose you don’t until it’s something that you can’t do. I want to do some sit ups to get rid of a little excess weight, I want to sign up to gym, run around with the kids at work, swim without worrying I won’t be able to get out of the pool. Hell I’d like to be able to have a bath without worrying that I will get stuck!

The one thing I have though is writing, writing this or songs or fiction. I have to get out of the clouded stage before I can write anything but I can feel it lifting more and more as I type this. I am struggling a little bit with my exercise and little walks to clear my head. I suppose it’s one of the biggest challenges to my mental health it’s all the things I’d usually avoid. If I try and search for a positive in all this I suppose I can see that I’ve been there once and even though I’ve spent a good amount of time on my own, I’m currently missing my friends like a limb and I deal with physical pain every day I’m getting through it one day at a time.

I know this is a long blog but I can almost bet anything that someone out there will read this and understand. That someone will understand the both freeing and unnerving feeling that I have to go through this low without my normal strategies. I’m ok though, really. I have a good few days lined up and for once I can remember that these lows don’t last forever.

Thanks for reading guys, as usual I’d love to hear from you. Oh! And thank you to every single one of you following me on twitter, another 100 followers in the past few weeks! It really put a smile on my face!

Frustrations and Fitness

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This year I finally got to a point with my depression that I could embrace some exercise to let off some steam. Now, I still can’t run and look like Phoebe from Friends when I try, so that’s nothing new. But I found riding and I found swimming, I could take control of one part of my body when another part was letting medown. I could only do so much with my mind, with the black cloud that wanted to suffocate me.

My plan for this summer was to swim a bit more, make my riding improve and right before the accident I was considering joining the gym…my arch nemesis. I’m not a gym bunny, I don’t enjoy running or exercise that doesn’t involve a horse or water. I just wanted to do something with my time and try and help me mentally and obviously now that’s been taken away. IMG_1855

Headed to the pool on one of my lows was a big relief

I can’t push my body the way I did, I can’t go on my long walks to clear my head or swim things off. I just sleep a lot and think, not always the best combo. It’s weird I never thought that I’d miss any fitness of any kind but I do. I want to go and see if I like the local gym, go back to the pool and getting on a horse has a while to go yet, just because of the risks with my spine.

I’m trying again to be positive, which is hard. I’m exhausted most of the time and just walking up the stairs can leave me a little breathless and struggling with pain. I’m going to have to try hard to slowly build up my fitness again once I’m recovered, so I’ll exercise my mind instead. I will probably document the build up too so you can all come along!

I have lots of ideas being scribbled, writers to work with so you shall all wait and see!

🙂

Lookin’ good

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I’ve been horse riding for 5 months now, every week that I possibly could. I think it’s gotten to a point that riding has become a part of me, which amuses my friends to no end. Something interesting happened tonight, one of my bosses and one of my lecturers commented on how well I look in myself this year and I’d like to think that horse riding has been a big part of that.

Now I’m not going to use this post to become a fitness bunny. You’re still more likely to find me curled up with a cup of tea rather than going for a jog. I still hate running with a passion, and my knees aren’t keen on it either. This year though, as well as being happier in general, I’ve started to actually try some fitness. I ride every Wednesday and I’m currently swimming as many Sundays as possible, in the summer the Wednesdays I can’t ride I’m hoping to swim instead.

I’m not doing this for the way I look, it’s crossed my mind occasionally but that’s usually after I look in the mirror and notice I’m a little bit more toned than I used to be. It’s strange for me to find excercise I love, at school it was my worst nightmare unless we were doing flips and things in the gym. Now I can’t wait to get that release from riding or swimming, although I remember wanting to bite anyone who said exercise will help depression, it will but you have to be well enough to get to that stage first.

Riding and swimming have become a huge part of my life now and they make me feel good about myself. I’m not a size 6, I don’t want to be. I’m not doing this to get rid of my curves or look like an Olympian that doesn’t even come to it, I just want to feel good.

Right now, however, I am aching from the most intense ride ever. I’m finally off the lunge and riding on my own! I think I’m going to go off and crawl into my bed!