Hi All. If you read my early blogs like ‘welcome to my blog’
and ‘why I’m writing a blog’ you will know that a big part of my reason I’m
doing this is to motivate me to stay on track with my goals for this year. My
goals are the basis of my journey to be the best version of Kelly and I figured that logging
my progress here would make me feel more accountable and keep me on track.
I have many aims for this year. The first ones I’m tackling
are writing my blog, practising my photography, eating healthily and starting
to exercise. The hope is these changes will improve my health, I suffer with
chronic fatigue (CFS), depression and anxiety.
If you’ve also read my posts named ‘my life through a lens’,
‘my healthy eating journey’ and ‘my exercise history’ you will understand my
starting point and why this is such a challenge!
So far, I have updated you on my progress monthly, see the
first month and second month. It just hasn’t been enough of a motivator so I am
now starting weekly updates.
For the past week, I have kept a diet and exercise diary.
Writing it all down and knowing it was going into a post has really motivated
me to try harder.
The plan is to then to share the details of my exercise and
diet with you. I will tell you where I get my recipes from or if they are my
own recipes I will write and/or link a blog post. I will tell you which types
of exercise I attempt and for how long. This is real beginners level stuff
which is so hard to find on the internet so I hope it helps people who find
themselves in a similar position to me.
I will add blogging updates too including my stats, any achievements
and any photos I am proud of or have enjoyed taking. In addition, I will talk
about my health that week and add any other personal highs or lows.
I hope this proves of interest and enjoyment to you all,
getting regular readers who follow my journey will be a wonderful motivator.
I’m going to have to get better at remembering to photograph
my food before wolfing it down!
Let me explain the diet changes I have made:
This diet isn’t about weight loss it is about improving my
health. I have known for years that diet can benefit mental health sufferers
yet somehow that wasn’t enough of a motivator for me yet now with the added
challenge of CFS I feel I must try these changes for my sake and for my
children.
Over the past few years I have read many healthy eating
books, watched food documentaries, read other people’s stories and even tried
the Candida diet. Through this I have come up with my own 5 rules I will apply
to my diet. I will occasionally cheat (I’m only human) but overall, these are
the rules I will follow. They are:
1. Avoid
refined sugar. For the first month, I am also cutting out natural
sweeteners including fruit and honey etc. I occasionally use Stevia, a natural sweetener
which has a negligible effect on blood glucose unlike almost all other sweeteners.
2. Avoid
gluten.
3. Limit
dairy. At home I use almond milk and never have cow’s milk but I do
occasionally have it when I am out. I also eat plain natural yogurt as I find
the probiotic properties beneficial to gut health. I try not to eat cheese but
occasionally succumb! At least cheese meets rules 1 and 2!
4. Avoid
processed foods.
5. Avoid alcohol and caffeine.
I say avoid rather than ‘don’t have’ as I think it is more
realistic and whilst I hope to find these changes beneficial I am not
intolerant to any of these foods.
Exercise wise I am doing gym based physio at the hospital
once every 2-3 weeks which is helping me find my limits and teaching me
suitable exercises to try. I also hope to walk more now the weather has
improved (pray I didn’t tempt fate there.) I’m wary to push too hard as whilst
many experts feel exercise is beneficial to CFS sufferers, there are other
experts who feel it can worsen symptoms. So I have been doing very short bursts
of different types of exercises (very short) and I will detail these in the
diaries.
I’m excited to do this as I know it will keep me on track and
be a great record of my journey to be the best version of Kelly.
I will post the first week’s diary shortly. Now live here.
I hope you enjoy them.
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Kelly x
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