It's been a week since I had my afternoon tea and consumed foods on my 'no' list so it's back on it today with Christmas behind us and New Year's Eve looking like my husband's idea of heaven (staying and not partying the night away) there is no excuse to get back on the wagon.
Before I tell you about today, let's reflect on yesterday as something major happened - I cleared out my wardrobe and after five years of holding on to my beloved Russell & Bromley boots I finally accepted that I am never going to be able to wear them again. It's a hard thing letting go and it's a hard thing accepting that your life has changed in so many ways. I have other shoes in my wardrobe that probably need to go too but for now giving up my beautiful boots (I had them in brown and black) was enough for one day! I doubt I will ever give up my wedding shoes that still sit there sparkling at me.
Shoes are always a nightmare for people with MS, my favourite brand is FLY London because I actually walk better with a slight heel but these ones are wedged heels. Their heel design also doesn't narrow at the back which enables you to feel balance. My favourite ones at their Yust Boots which I also have in brown and black! These are so comfortable, my leg feels secure with it's tie up back. It has a zip on the inside so it's easy to put them on and because they are leather they are soft. For the last few months I've actually been walking around the house with just socks on, something I never used to do that's because since October I've barely used my FES (functional electrical stimulator for foot drop) as since Taopatches has decreased my spasticity I found that the FES was becoming more of a hindrance than a help this is because it's very sensitive to your muscle tone and where things have changed within my body it's not working as it should. My foot drop has improved with the MS Gym and the Taopatches - when I am tired it's much more pronounced and when I wear boots it's much improved as the boots help bend the knee so actually assists your walking technique. I just wish FLY did these in other colours - some suede tan ones would be lush - I did write and recommend that style so living in hope!
Introducing PRODIGY
My amazing mother-in-law went out of her way to find me some chocolate for Christmas that I could enjoy and here it is PRODIGY Chunky Chocolate - it's vegan friendly and gluten free and even better it's made with unprocessed sugar, WHOOP WHOOP it ticks every box and it even tastes good. I know compared to Cadbury's you will probably say it's horrible but honestly compared to some DF & GF chocolate I've tried this one is good. I've not heard of this brand before so will be adding to my list of treats I can enjoy. I have to either eat all of this before 31st December or put them away as I am going to January totally sugar free so I won't even be able to enjoy these but they will be a great treat for February if there's any left (and thankfully lockdown has meant my occasional afternoon tea treat with my friends has been postponed - although I am sad as I am a real social butterfly (my friends are a part of my prescription for mindset) and its been a long time since we last go together to enjoy an afternoon of chilling out, eating cake and catching up.
Today's Workout
The last week was tough in terms of my mobility, a combination of eating naughty foods, brain processing from the three previous great weeks and no doing any exercise since last Monday meant I was struggling to move easily around the house. But today is a new day, I am back to my usual diet and back to my exercise. I have decided to try Trevor Wicken's new Bed Built workout within my membership package. It's a 7 day programme lying on your back and doing specific exercises to help your body create movement maps. It is really designed for people with MS who can't sit up or stand easily but I've heard lots of good things about the program helping people to really engage their glutes and I think my glutes would enjoy that. So, I did Day 1 which included eye drills and hip hikes amongst other things and watched the video of Trevor showing how to do the movements correctly. I typically just follow the PDF guidelines once I've got used to a program but the first time I like to ensure I am doing things properly. Also when you do it alongside Trevor he constantly reminds you to hold the right BGB position whilst doing the moves. BGB is butt, guts and blades the three key things that people with MS tend to struggle with so this is key. I then did a companion guide program for foot drop and one for thoracic movement as I've done these many times before I carried on watching my current Netflix series that my husband doesn't watch with me - 'The End of the F***ing World' - it's pretty entertaining if you haven't seen it. I actually get to watch a lot of programmes whilst doing my workouts so my list of recommendations is pretty long!
This is Trevor for those of you who don't know him!
I'm actually going to start recording my workouts and food diary from January in my lovely new page a day diary by Matilda Moo - I am not ashamed to admit I love stationery. I remember even as a young child collecting pretty writing paper with my friends at school, a new pad or diary always comes with a special feeling of joy. You either get this or you don't a bit of a marmite moment (which by the way is disgusting and leaves trails of stickiness when people don't clean up after having some!) My Matilda Moo dairies are gorgeous and match the decor of my lounge and office because yes, I am that sad :-)
I actually have two new diaries for 2021 (let's hope it's a better year for us all) - one is for work and the other is a small page a day one that I will be using as my workout and food diary. I will also record with a face my movement for that day:
a great day - smiley face and a star
a good day - smiley face
an okay day - flat line face
a rubbish day - sad face
Along with recording any epic moments and any Taopatch changes along with recording any epic moments and any Taopatch changes. This will help me keep track of what works well and also it will be great for looking back at down periods and how long they last. Today I feel is an okay day movement wise I feel I am coming back up from the down period - typically they tend to last between 3-5 days.
Taopatch Detox Round 2
I have started the Liver Detox again today - this is the Increasing Cellular Activity part of using Taopatches and is a crucial part of the process which should be done at least twice a year. This is my 2nd time doing this and I know it's going to be hard work but at least this time I know what to expect. For the Liver Detox you need three patches. You place two of these on your feet (one on the left and one on the right as per the images below) and one between your nipples. The one of your left foot goes one width finger from the join of the pinky toe and the next toe and the one on the right foot goes two finger width from the join of the big toe and the next toe.
If you are new to Taopatches and haven't done the month 2 liver detox followed by the month 3 kidney detox then you should as you can't really know if the patches are working properly if you haven't followed all the steps. They will make you feel tired, urinated more, bloat your belly and generally make you feel yucky but it's worth it, I promise you.
Images taken from the Taopatch website
Dog Walks and Scooters
It's only 2pm so my day won't be over for a while yet, next up is dog walk with my husband. We have a five year old Labrador - Bella, who is a beautiful dog. I was a bit anal about training her but it paid off as she is such a well behaved dog who can go anywhere and everyone adores her. She particular loves her dog walks, I try and walk for a bit of the journey but when it's cold like today my body doesn't work so well which makes it harder. I always walk with my walking poles - again, something recommended by Trevor Wicken. Before the MS Gym I had a walking stick but one of the first thing Trevor teaches you is that to have better posture you should have two walking poles. I have these ones from Mountain Warehouse - perfect for my short stature (4ft 11ins). I have two sets, one set is in the car permanently and the other is in the house as some of the workouts require them especially in the early days if you have balance issues you will need them. I also use them if I go out into our garden. I used to be really conscious of people looking at me when I first used a stick and then when I moved to two but you gradually realise they make such a difference to your movement that you get over it and if someone stays at me, I stare back with a 'what's your issue' face. I mean seriously, disability can happen to anyone at any time so people should be more understanding and realise with are people with disabilities not sub-standard human beings that you can stare at. I find the worse people are older people, they have no issue with staring - you'd think being at the closer to death stage of life they'd be a bit more understanding haha, but no they are definitely the worse.
I also have a Days Out lightweight wheelchair but Stu struggles with arthritis in his hands so pushing me constantly on dog walks hurts. So we recently invested in an ATTO - scooter. When deciding on a scooter (which took me along time to come to terms with, but to be fair it does give me more independence and it means my husband's hands don't hurt constantly) I wanted something that didn't make me look like an older person, now I know that sounds silly but hopefully you know what I mean. When I spoke to the sales consultant for a website I found, he said, "I have the perfect scooter for you, it's like the iPhone of scooters" and here it is, my ATTO! I has 6 speeds and a reverse function. We also paid extra for the stick holders so I can still walk as and when I want to and Stu then gets to ride it! It's compact and folds up to suitcase side and is pull along. It is heavy though - I think about 12.5kgs so I would never be able to lift it up on my own but that's okay I don't need to. It has a removable battery for charging but to be fair it can do about a week's worth of dog walks before it needs a charge. Everything is fully adjustable and as someone who is short this was a worry but it's perfect. You must be careful if you get one as it's 3 wheeled and this means you have to go up slopes at a 90 degree angle - now even though my husband told me this, we did have an incident! We were visiting his parents on the Isle of Wight in October. We were coming back from a beach walk (Bella loves the beach) when I took a corner which had a slope and didn't think about my angle. The control button on the scooter is a push mechanism and when you let go the scooter just stops, well I guess my brain, in a moment of panic, was thinking press down to brake instead so I continued at full speed and ended up in a rose bush. It was funny - in fact it was very funny (I nearly peed myself I was laughing so much). Thankfully my father-in-law and Stu came to my rescue and aside from a bruised thigh and toe I was absolutely fine and since then I've approached all slopes with the right angle!!! This isn't the first IOW incident, I might tell you the other story another day and I really hoping that things don't happen in threes and another incident on the Island isn't waiting for me!
