Women’s Health – Life According to TJ

Exercise, Healthy living, Well-being, Women's Health

Getting fit for free

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020 Steph TJ

This past week or so I’ve been getting a bit deflated, I’m not going to lie! There seems to be a price for everything.

My inbox and Facebook feed has recently been filled with sale after sale after sale. Buy a mindfulness course, buy a neuro-science course, buy a spirituality course, buy a yoga course, buy a Qi Gong course, buy a meditation course. But then it suddenly hit me, why do I have to pay for all of this stuff, surely there has to be enough out there for free. And so, I set off on my google search and sure enough there is plenty that is available that’s free of charge.

As you know, I have this mad fool dream of paddling across the sea on my paddle board, and there has been some progress as I have had a swimming lesson in the sea. Sadly, since the aforementioned lesson I have been without a car, so have been unable to go for a second one, but believe you me, as soon as I can I will be going for a second swimming lesson in the sea as I progress towards my goal. The other thing that really needs to be improved in order to achieve my goal is to strengthen was is currently a very weak core, in a safe manner appropriate for a woman of a certain age!

You Tube is always a great place to start if you are looking for anything. I already follow:

Yoga with Adriene
Yoga with Kassandra
FemFusion Fitness

After a short while searching I also came across:

Videos by Women’s Health Magazine
Walk at Home by Leslie Sansone
PopSugar fitness
The Body Coach – although some of his workouts are a bit beyond me at the moment

And since when did you need to pay money to meditate or pray, at the end of the day it involves sitting quietly on a chair or a school with a timer going, dependent on how long you wish to sit there. You don’t have to download a fancy app with a million different types of meditations. I’ve been reading ‘Untamed’ by Glennon Doyle and I read recently that Adele accredits the book for her dramatic recent shift in outlook on life. Glennon herself says she started meditating by just sitting in her closet for 10 minutes a day, and after a while it became easier and she could sit for longer. No fancy app, just sit.

Another quote I read in ‘Untamed’ was ‘This life is mine alone’. I am the only person on this planet with these skills, these talents, these people. I am the only person living this experience, in this body, that’s this shape, with these health problems – so what is the point in trying to be like someone else? Of trying to make an exercise programme that’s designed for somebody completely different fit me as best as it can. There is absolutely no point at all, because I am not the same as everyone else and they aren’t the same as me – what suits one person is not going to suit another and a one size fits all really just doesn’t work that well. Obviously, I am prone to over thinking and this set me off thinking about that old saying ‘keeping up with the Jones’. You could have exactly the same things as your neighbours, same car, same house, same tv – but you can never be the same. Ever.

You can apply this to everything – social media, marketing, exercise, everything. The whole kit and kaboodle is based on us all being the same! Where’s the point in that!

I found this to be incredibly refreshing!

So, I have decided that I am going to try and get on to my paddle board for free! Just by using free apps, or programmes, or pins on Pinterest and rather than just pay someone to tell me what to do I’m going to try to put together a programme that works for me. A diet that works for me. Not doing what someone else tells me I should be doing, especially as I am mindful of a weak pelvic floor, a need to build up my core and the ever-present fibromyalgia. There are also so many opportunities for exercising free of charge in Portugal, walking, cycling, swimming, exercise equipment in the parks and I don’t have to worry about poor weather stopping me getting outside into the fresh air.

Having said that, I will still pay for swimming lessons in the sea – they are a need to get me on the paddle board, and I will still pay for yoga lessons, as this is also a social activity for me and having contact with the other members of the class is beneficial to my mental health. I am sociable by nature, so I do need to have some human interaction. I also appreciate that I am in a fortunate situation in that I already have trainers, a good sports bra, a bike and access to technology to do the online exercises, so don’t have to spend money on bits of equipment to get going. Beyond that, I am going to reward myself with a €1 a day for exercising and will spend that money on equipment should I need to replace anything during the course of the challenge. In an ideal world I would complete a Personal Trainer instructor course so that I can safely advise other women of a certain age, how they could add exercise in to their lives in a safe and consistent manner, but that’s just out there for the universe to decide at the moment so in the meantime, I shall just share what I’m doing and the progress I am making.I’m just off to unsubscribe from all of the sales emails in my inbox and am quite excited by the challenge of finding new and different ways to improve my fitness, without creating a huge hole in my bank balance.

Exercise, Walking, Women's Health

Learning to walk

December 22, 2019 Steph TJ

It would appear that I’ve been doing it all wrong. You might wonder, how hard walking can be, but seemingly it’s harder than you think!

As you know, I’ve been having a few issues with a bit of a flimsy pelvic floor, but I’ve also been struggling quite a bit with sore hips and a bad back, particularly after long walks. I’ve found some great exercises on the internet, but am always wary about getting too engrossed in videos on the internet just in case you get the technique wrong. I have recently become quite scared of exercising, which is frustrating because I love it, but I am terrified of doing some more damage to the lower half of my body. Whilst we were in Bristol, I made an appointment to see my Kinesiologist, who recommended I also saw her daughter, a physiotherapist that specialises in muscular skeletal conditions. I was keen to know where the pain was originating from, was it my feet, my hips or my back.

As it happens it was none of the above. The problem stems from the sacroiliac joint. Who knew it could cause such chaos if it’s not working correctly! On top of that it would also seem that as well as having a flimsy pelvic floor and a core that is shot to bits, I also have little by way of any kind of action in my glute muscles. It would appear that my joints have literally been hanging off my ligaments and my muscles have not been doing any of the work at all. As a consequence, my joints have just been merrily grinding against each other, causing the stiffness, pain and soreness – and why I look like an elderly lady most mornings before I get moving.

photo of person walking along seashore — Photo by Matt Hardy on Pexels.com

Exercising pelvic floor muscles aren’t going to resolve this. This requires some hard core back to basics to get my body functioning in a way that will support me for the years to come. I need to learn to walk again with proper posture and alignment, I need to learn to use my glute muscles so that they do the job they were designed for. These are tiny, tiny muscles that need to be worked – not the big showey offey muscles, but the deep muscles that support the body and enable it to function correctly.

It would seem that the pelvic cavity is like a bucket. You need to keep the bucket level, if it’s not, then things spill out. In order to get the bucket level, you need to tuck your pelvis under and keep it level when you walk! This, apparently will help my spine to stay straighter and avoid lordosis in my spine. Then while I’m keeping the bucket level, I need to engage my glutes with every step. I need to try to stop over working my joints. How hard can this be?!?!? I am mildly terrified that I will get it wrong and create other imbalances in my body which will need to be corrected at a later date.

photo of woman wearing pink sports shoes walking — Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com

In the short term I’ve been provided with some stretches, some simple exercises, have been encouraged to try swimming, cycling on a stationary bike, walking on the flat and in particular avoiding hills and cobbles – so Albufeira with its cobbled hills is going to be a bit of a challenge! I’m also not too sure how my beloved yoga is going to fare, even there I think I need to go back to the beginning again, hyper mobility in my joints has also meant that I’ve not actually been stretching or strengthening muscles, more grinding the joints, which is never a good thing.

Husband is a big believer in there being something that is a trigger for change. The fear of premature arthritis in my hips and sacroiliac joint is enough of a trigger. Since I’ve started the stretches, the pain in the morning has already started to subside, so at least I do know there is some relief on the horizon. I suspect it’s going to be a bit of slow journey, and I also suspect I’m going to have to make several visits to a physiotherapist to make sure that I’m not doing myself further damage. It’s always nice to know where you are, where you are starting from and the positive steps you can take to bring about change. Fingers crossed 6 months from now there will be some progress, the pain will have subsided and I may be able to increase the amount of exercise I can do – correctly.

So … when I originally set up my blog I called it ‘Walking Back to Happiness’ because I’d had to give up running as I had just too many injuries to carry on through. It seems the title is more appropriate than I’d ever imagined as I have to go right back to the beginning, walking little and often, this time treating my poor, damaged, body with a little more love and tenderness!

Menopause, Well-being, Women's Health

Back to Basics …. Again

November 25, 2019 Steph TJ

I’ve been suffering with a bad back this past week. It sort of ‘went’ a week or so ago. I say sort of, as this time there was no real big twang moment, more of an increasing sense of unease and restricted movement. Eventually it did reach the point where it was too uncomfortable to really move, at which point I decided to go to yoga. My thinking behind this was that I’d not been to yoga for a while, with one thing and another, and that I just needed a bit of a stretch. It was also a case of kill or cure – it can safely be concluded that it was a kill and not a cure. At all.

I’ve reached the point with slow movement, a bit of stretching, a bit of resting and a bit of sitting cross legged in the chair to keep my back straight that I’ve started to mend. I had hoped that it would sort itself out of it’s own accord and that I wouldn’t have to have any treatment on it. I was fairly confident that it was my glutes and hamstrings that were the guilty party, being tight enough to snap. I decided a massage was just the thing to get me sorted and at the very least get me back on the road to recovery in the most pain free way! I went to the amazing Art of Touch in Albfeira, where I also go for my yoga classes.

I’d like to say it was enjoyable, but that would be a big lie. Anyone that’s had very tight muscles massaged will tell you that it doesn’t really go into the relaxing, enjoyable bracket – more something to be endured whilst you try your very best to breathe through it, understanding that it is all to the benefit of your body in the long term.

woman relaxing relax spa — Photo by Pixabay

Sadly, I was correct – my glutes and hamstrings were to blame. This was established early on, with there being no pain in my back, but I hit the roof when my glutes were set upon! It transpired my quads, hips and pelvis weren’t in such great shape either. So, basically the whole of my lower body – between waist and knees is stuck together in a heap. The final death knell was the weak core. Not the fancy dancy abdominal muscles that everyone wants to mould into a six pack, but the really important, stabilising, deep core muscles.

Here’s the rub. I don’t have those muscles – well they are there, but they are a bit saggy and torn. They were destroyed a long, long time ago. Never at any time, did I realise the impact that the destruction of those tiny little muscles would have on the functioning of my body for the remainder of my adult life. You see, I’ve had 6 relatively minor operations on my pelvic area, but with each operation I was merrily blown up like a balloon and deflated again within the space of 60 minutes. During the last operation, besides being blown up, I also had my insides hoovered out. This has left me with very weak core muscles and a somewhat saggy undercarriage! To say I was devastated by my weak core coming to light again, would be a bit of an understatement. I’ve had these problems since I was about 14, with my insides being stuck together in a sticky, messy, heap. I have never really had a comfortable pelvic area and prior to my hysterectomy was in pain to some degree on most days. This alone, has impacted my posture as I have tried to stand or walk in a way that reduced the pain, which isn’t necessarily the correct way to stand.

It seems that basically what I’ve been doing for many, many years is forcing those parts of my body that do work to do the work of those parts that don’t. However, for the first time EVER, I left my massage with some hope. I was shown some exercises to do to help improve the function of my deep core muscles. The purpose of exercising and strengthening these tiny, tiny muscles was explained to me. I’ve been given breathing exercises to do, been advised on the type of yoga that would help me recover, ideas on how to sit, how to manage my body during the day, things that are good and bad (sadly knitting and crochet are out for a while) and told definitely not to overdo things and take time to repair. There is a fab women’s specific Personal Trainer on YouTube – Dr Bri at FemFusionFitness who does a whole course in regaining some function in a saggy undercarriage and moves aimed at protecting the core – from lifting, to toilet training and how to stand correctly. So there is help out there, it just takes some finding and at least now I know what it is I’m looking for.

I’ve entered the London Moonwalk in May 2020. It is a bucket list item and I really want to make it to the start line. This alone is enough to make me listen, to go back to basics and to get some strength and stability in my core. At the end of the day the walk cannot happen if I don’t do that. I’ve always worked on the premise that if I push my body hard enough I can prove to myself and the world that it isn’t the total let down I believe it to be. But it seems I have pushed myself to the limit now, and I need to stop, slow down and start to fix it, to show it some love and encourage it to smile again – possibly to smile for the first time in its life.