Unfit and Painful to Fit and Pain free

A few days later and I have done very little exercise until tonight. I have been suffering from neck pain from changing my massage technique to rest my wrists and last night I got out my Thera cane (type of massage stick) and applied all the techniques I know to release the tight muscle. Today I am in less pain and was not seized up first thing. As for food I had a sausage ciabatta and cuppa first thing at a meeting with a Homeopath that is joining my team! not the best start. I have started an organic box scheme again with Organics-to-go who will let me omit items from the box as they become available in my own vegetable patch which means I am not buying things that I already have. I missed lunch as I was working on my website and all fired up from my meeting. One of the areas that I am very bad is drinking, I don't drink large amounts but I do have a glass or two most nights. I think this affects my stomach problems which I have each morning and I know is not good for me. I decided that being more active in the evenings instead of plonking myself infront of the TV with a glass of wine was the way to go. I went out for a 45 minute bike ride round the park with my husband and the dogs, famiy fitness! It took me a while to get going but as always once the endorphins kicked in I wanted to so a second lap and now feel great. Tomorrow I will try and power walk or jog with the dog after my clients. For dinner we had my new favourite, salad nicoise in wholemeal pitta bread...so for a change very healthy.

Ciao
Sarah

Hi everyone

Today is day one of my health diary.

Vital Stats
Height - 5ft 1/2 inch
Weight - 11st 4lbs
BMI - 31, apparently I am classed as very over-weight!
Bodyfat % 37
Age - 31
Size - 14-16 Bottom, 12-14 Top
Occupation - Massage Therapist & Pet Sitter

If I am very honest I yoyo between trying to eat desperately healthily and eating rubbish and junk food. I have a typically unhealthy approach to food and drink and tend to use both to make me feel better. I love my food and spend hrs pouring over my many cook-books, magazines or "Dieters Porn" as my friend calls it! I love cooking with seasonal healthy, organic food and enjoy baking, cooking, gardening, crafting and trying my best to be Martha Stewart.
This is sadly offset by my guilty McDonalds habit, love of Kebabs and junk food in general.
I love the idea of being fit, toned, flexible, sporty and healthy and have a fair amount of knowledge on these subjects and am able to help other people re-gain flexibility, improve health and fitness and feel better. I just dont seem to be able to motivate myself! At one point several years ago I was a size 16 and was very unhappy about the whole thing and did weight watchers from home and lost several stone and managed to get down to a size 10 and 8st 12lbs and felt fabulous, looked fabulous but was not particularly fit or healthy just thinner and smaller. Over the last few years my weight has crept up and my dress size has got slowly bigger. However I am a fair bit heavier than I was when I was a size 16 and lead a much more physical lifestyle. I am can only assume that I have more muscle this time round which tends to weigh more than fat. I feel that BMI is not a brilliant indicator of health as it does not take fat/muscle ratio into consideration.
I am much more active than before as I have left a sedentary job in the city for a more physical role as a massage therapist and dog walker. I see on average 10-15 clients per week and my upper body strength has improved and my legs are more muscular. However I am now in pain most of the time with the repetitive actions that I do through my work and am nowhere near as flexible as I used to be. I suffer from back-ache, sciatic pain, shoulder pain, headaches (related to shoujlder pain) in fact all the things that I am able to successfully treat with my own clients. I have sadly not been able to find a massage therapist for myself that can do the kind of work I do, which is a combination of deep massage, stretching, myofascial release, Hot Stone work and most importantly Trigger Point Therapy.
I have so many books, magazines and info from my training, my experience with my clients and research that I have done on the net for my clients that I know all the things that I need to do to become Fit and Pain free. I decided to Guinea-pig myself on all these ideas and techniques before rolling it out to my clients.
This will be my record of all the techniques I use and how I proceed each day, which seems to work and which does not work for me. Hopefully telling this to all of you each day will give me the motivation I need to reach my health goals. It is important that I stress this is not about getting thin and reducing my dress size, it is about becoming the healthiest I can be regardless of what size I end up. I want to protect myself from ill health through nutrition, tailored exercise, stretching, massage and self treatment. I also want to get my body in great shape so that I can start a family.

On this my first day I have managed to walk/jog 20 minutes to my gym (3 mins jogging) do a full range of stretches focusing particularly on my right side which I favour in work and is very tight, do some upper body weights to improve my strength so that I can carry on working, a quick swim, steam and 20 minute walk back to my house. The jogging was horrid and made me feel so unfit, however once I got halfway to the gym I felt fantastic (endorphins kicking in) and stopped to use a handy kirb and lamp-post to stretch before heading on. After the gym I had a much clearer nose and felt generally better and proud of myself. I will see how i feel tomorrow when I take the dog out for a jog/walk!

Thanks
Sarah