Learn with Comfizz
Exercise

October was a very special time for me as I entered my first 10K race in Cardiff, South Wales. Whatever possessed me to do it you ask? How many of you who are reading this with a chronic illness have found they can’t be as active as they once were? For me it was like a light switch was flicked and I couldn’t do anything without being in pain anymore. Its debilitating, demoralising and can lead you down a dark path mentally with the mental health benefits you loose over night. My health journey has been quite the fair ground ride.

I have always been one of those people that adores the great outdoors but not so fond of just sitting about in the garden I need to be doing something outside. Due to my multiple chronic health conditions I always had some anxiety in the back of my head regarding solo treks; this year I decided to break that fear and go off by myself, don’t get me wrong having Kobe helps plus the odd friend who will join me on occasion too. Having an ileostomy certainly hasn’t stopped me from going off and enjoying myself.

Yes gardening is exercise if you are thinking “hmmmm why is it in the exercise category”! However I don’t blame you for questioning whether or not it deserves to be in this section; but during lockdown I certainly learnt it is hard work! 00Steve and I embarked on the back garden project where we entirely redesigned one corner of our garden. So we went from a lawn that slowly sloped up to holly trees to having two ponds, a rockery, a sunken trampoline, decking, two living walls and a raised bed herb garden! I started off by “supervising”, providing refreshments, keeping him company to actually getting stuck in!     We tried to share the workload, well as best as we could...

This week I wanted to talk about how much I have appreciated the double layer boxers whilst I have been exercising over the last few weeks. Yes these boxers are unisex, they can be bought or added to your annual allowance and of course they are made by Comfizz! But even if they weren’t I would still love them but just maybe not talk about them here! I don’t often talk about the products supplied by Comfizz as they can speak for themselves! However when they are this good I just think I should give a brief bah dum tish post on them! Positives: colour variations they have multiple holes for your ostomy bag regardless what side or where it is situated the holes...

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the different active videos people were posting for you to join in with?  Well I am very blessed to have a good sized back garden and myself, Sarah and Hannah ran around our back gardens of varying sizes to show people who also have gardens that they if we need to in the future exercise in them! We are entering the second lot of three weeks of lockdown in the UK and if people keep flouting the rules we may see stricter rules on leaving the house.  All three of us took a heck of a lot longer than we thought we would to run round our respective backyards and found...

The United Kingdom is on lockdown until further notice, the schools are closed except for key workers kids and the vulnerable, many employers have had to furlough staff in a bid to flatten the curve to slow the spread of the virus and more importantly help reduce the potential strain on the NHS. We are *currently* allowed to go out to exercise once a day either solo or as a household. That doesn’t mean you want too though whether because of showing symptoms and self isolating, the anxiety of catching it or because you just plain don’t want too! For us as a household it is difficult as I want to try and go for a run but I also...

How often do you hear or read people talking about working your core? How often do you feel a pang of fear and think I’ve had abdominal surgeries or my illness/ostomy won’t let me? Trust me you certainly aren’t alone! I have felt like that since 2008 after my first surgery and I am here to tell you that you certainly can and it certainly doesn’t revolve around those ridiculous boot camp style exercises.   Whilst in the not so distant future depending on how your body copes, reacts and adapts to core exercise you maybe able to do HIIT style workouts it certainly isn’t necessary. So as you may have read in my post about running a couple of weeks...

Define mental wellness Mental wellness is not necessarily just to do with not having a mental illness. It is to do with a largely positive thinking mind and one that knows how to use resilience in order to function in an individual’s best interests. It is being able to go about our lives and make decisions that will positively impact our lives, where possible. Define mental illness Mental illness is a general term, usually used to define disorders that negatively impact your health, down to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Mental illnesses are influenced by a number of factors, but having one usually means that our daily lives are negatively impacted in one form or another. Whether that impact...

Ever since I was a kid I enjoyed running mainly the sprints and as I got older and before I got far too sick with pouchitis I started to enjoy distance running. I have dabbled a few times with running since my ileostomy but I’m not sure my heart was in it and with having two small kids I’m not sure I had the get up and go either. Something however has changed my mind set and that something was pretty tragic. My best friend and her husband sadly lost their little boy Phoenix; her big love in life prior to her little family was running and I remember watching the London Marathon in 2016 whilst I was recovering from...

I get asked by a lot of people about exercising with a stoma, especially yoga. In this post, I will be speaking about my experience from starting yoga altogether post-surgery, so if you have had to step off the yoga mat to have surgery, getting back into yoga isn’t something I have experience of. First things first, yoga is not something I know loads about so what you are going to read is merely from my understanding and experience only. As always, it is best to consult a medical/trained professional before attempting yoga as everyone’s needs and limitations are different.   What are the benefits of yoga? Yoga is said to have many health benefits & what these benefits are can vary from...