Quick upate

By on May 15, 2012 in Heal Yourself

I’m not sure who, if anyone, is following this blog.

I’m most likely talking to myself which is fine because I’m keeping a nice history of what I’ve been up to on my road back to good health.

But just in case… I thought I’d let you know that I have a heap of content to get posted here. While I’ve been quiet on the blog I have been making huge progress offline with a very strong possibility of resolving my leg / hip issues, diet, bowel, and past traumatic stress.

Some of the things I’ve been learning about and testing are mind blowing. They go so far against conventional education and wisdom and yet are fully backed up by proven studies.

It’s becoming more and more clear that “big pharmacy” is well aware of some miraculous science and yet suppresses, undermines or downplays it in order to profit as opposed to helping people improve their lives.

It’s a little frustrating that I’m starting to sound like a conspiracy crack-pot but the evidence it out there (right, Mulder?)

Anyway… I’m still kicking and making interesting and fascinating progress and have around 8 updates to write over the next week or so.

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Hip X-Rays And Possible Labral Tear

By on March 25, 2012 in Flexibility, Functional Movement, Heal Yourself

I received the initial overview back from comparative hip x-rays I had done last Wednesday.

After continuing to experience considerable pain in my left hip and leg a new physio sent me off for comparative x-rays.

He gave me a call on Friday to indicate that I have some arthritis showing in my left hip and he was surprised that I didn’t have pain in my right hip as there is something going on there too. Although it wouldn’t show up in x-rays he’s still pretty sure I have a labral tear in my left hip causing much of the pain.

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Exploring “The Work”

By on March 19, 2012 in Heal Yourself, Mental

Having been through a challenging few years it’s important to me that I heal both physically and mentally so I’m constantly looking at new strategies for self-improvement and change, particularly focusing on identifying and releasing the underlying beliefs that get in our way.

Last week I stumbled across TheWork.com and, quite frankly, I’m both astonished and excited.

The Work, developed by Byron Katie, is an extremely simple 4 question process for identifying and releasing limiting thoughts and beliefs.

The simplicity of it blew my mind. I’ve been a huge fan of 3D Mind developed by my friends Tom and Kim (see http://www.essential-skills.com) but for the last couple of years I’ve struggled to use it on myself. The Work, though, has struck me as very similar to 3D Mind in several key ways and yet simpler and easier for me to work with.

I’m not going to go into great detail in this post but I encourage readers to check out the website and give it a try for yourself.

I put it to the test on a few key beliefs on Saturday morning and had some quite astounding changes happen in the way I perceived situations and my interactions with others on Sunday. That made for a much more fun, satisfying and relaxing day with my daughter. Again… I’ll go into detail in a later post – for now I’m still experimenting and exploring.

The best thing about The Work is that it’s available 100% free to anyone. Go to TheWork.com, find the resources page and download the manual, process instructions, worksheets and facilitation guide. Everything you need, all for free.

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Physical Rehab Progress

By on March 19, 2012 in Functional Movement

So another couple of weeks and still no real progress with my left hip / leg.

Both my physio and osteo (whom I highly respect) seem to be somewhat stumped. They’ve both suggested a labral tear as a possible cause but there’s no easy way to establish this – even with x-ray / MRI scans it’s hard to spot.

Tomorrow morning I’m meeting with another postueral musculoskeletal physio at Julie’s work to get an additional opinion.

From there I’m going to organise a visit to Auckland to see New Zealand’s only SFMS (Selective Functional Movement Assesment) certified practitioner. Hopefully he’ll be able to help me diagnose the cause and provide corrective movement patterns to rebuild strength, stability and structure.

Pain levels are still pretty high but vary on a day to day basis.

On top of that I seem to have developed a throat spasm which means I constantly feel like I have a lump in my throat. Everything I’ve researched suggests it’s no big deal (people don’t tend to feel the dangerous lumps) and swallow water is still ok. Often linked to high stress this sort of thing usually goes away on it’s own. Eventually. :)

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Structure And Flexibility – 2 Steps Back

By on March 5, 2012 in Flexibility, Heal Yourself

Oh my health.

Sigh.

It’s definitely been a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back process.

In fact, last week was a leap backwards 5 steps. Somehow I managed to completely mess up my left leg again – from my ankle to my hip. My left hip rotated forward, left IT band locked up solid, huge trigger points in my calf, ankle painful, the band from my left hip up to the top of my rib cage tight and constricted right to where I managed to put an upper left rib out of place.

In other words – pain and restricted movement.

So I visited Julie and a couple of manipulations and needle trigger point releases later I was starting to feel much better. That was a week ago and I’m still not fully recovered.

All of this is particularly frustrating because I only have 2 ACC subsidised sessions left and we’re yet to get to the real underlying core of the problem.

So… in order to prepare for my next visit with Julie it’s time to get into some stretching. In particularly I’m working on quads, calves and hamstrings in March. In an ideal world I would be stretching all of these 5-6 times a day for 3-4 mins at a time. In an ideal world…

If I can manage it 2-4 times a day every day in March I’ll be happy. Let’s see if super tight hamstrings is a big part of the problem. Loosen those up and we’ll see what Julie can find then.

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Paleo almond flour, flax meal banana loaf.

By on February 27, 2012 in Paleo

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So I’ve been baking… Paleo styles.

Absolutely enjoying it.  I mean look at that loaf and tell me you aren’t drooling all over your own lap.

So light, so fluffy, delicious beyond belief and no grains, gluten or refined sugar.

Nom nom nom nom.

I’ve also been doing lots of muffins with almond meal and coconut flour.

Trouble is… my waistline is also enjoying it far too much and I’m putting on weight again. Opps. Apparently a cup or more of nuts a day is too much hehe.

So time to slow down and continue to tweak this new diet saving things like this for special treats.

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Weak Lower Abs

By on February 13, 2012 in Flexibility, Functional Movement, Heal Yourself

My next physio appointment with Julie this morning.  I almost missed it too, having completely forgotten to put the appointment into my calendar.  Fortunately someone at Physical Sense gave me a call and I jumped in the car and, ahem… bent… a few traffic speed guidelines to get there. Fortunately I caught green lights all the way.

So… we ended up cramming 30 mins of appointment into 15 mins by doing a quick check & massage on my calf muscles (again extremely tight).  Julie needled one really tight trigger point in my left calf and the difference was, again, staggering; from a taunt, painful muscle to relaxed and pliable in seconds.  I’m still amazed by this simple process.

From there Julie gave me the 30 min Pilates lesson on strengthening lower abs compressed down into 5 minutes.

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Chicken Stirfry and Cauliflower Mashed Potato

By on February 4, 2012 in Diet, Heal Yourself, Paleo

Tonight was Paleo chicken stirfry time!

Absolutely delicious. It’s the first time I’ve ever cooked with seasame oil and it adds such an amazing flavour to the stirfry. Once again I completely overate because it was so good. So much for saving some for the next day :)

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I was suitably inspired to also make some more vegetable muffins for breakfast / lunch the next day. Filled to the brim with silver beet, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, zucchini and flavoured with tumeric, smoked paprika, garlic and mixed herbs.

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How To Kick The Sheep Counting (aka: Better Sleep – The Zeo Sleep Manager Review)

By on February 3, 2012 in Heal Yourself

I’ve just done a video review of a new device I’m trying out to help identify (and correct) possible issues with my sleep.

As mentioned before I have been suffering from chronic fatigue for the last 4+ months.

A key area I’ve been looking at is sleep. Am I getting enough? Am I going into deep sleep? Do I have sleep apnea?

The next tool in my sleep exploration journey is the Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile.

So far I’m very impressed.

Worn as a headband while you sleep it transmits data about your sleep states via bluetooth to your smartphone. The next morning your data is synced to the myzeo.com website where you can view reports that will help you adjust and improve your sleep patterns.

Already after 3 days I’m feeling a dramatic… dramatic… difference in my sleep, simply by trying to make sure I wind down a bit before bed time and by not drinking any caffeine after 3pm – both suggestions made by the website in correlation with my uploaded data.

Check out the video review here and if you have sleep issues… definitely check this out for yourself.

A quick review of the Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile that I received a few days ago.

Check the Zeo Mobile and Bedside options out on Amazon.com:

Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile at Amazon

Zeo Personal Sleep Coach (The beside clock version) at Amazon

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Physio Update

By on February 3, 2012 in Flexibility, Functional Movement, Heal Yourself

I had my next visit with Julie the Physio on Wednesday.

After a quick catch-up & review we checked out my form.

There’s been a lot of improvement – my flat footed squat has come a long way – about 70% of where I need it to be to be able to get down and balance comfortably in bare feet. Not quite there yet – I still have to pull myself forward and will fall over backwards if I lose concentration.

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