What are you doing to look after your physical wellbeing?

What do you think of when I ask what you're doing to look after your physical wellbeing?

Things that come to mind for me include being active, spending time outdoors, resting, eating well, staying hydrated and looking after any part of my body that needs particular attention. This all has an impact on mental wellbeing too, but I’ll talk more about that another time.

Looking after my physical wellbeing is important to me because I want to be healthy and active – including to keep up with my five-year-old son. It’s a normal part of my life, but now is at the forefront of my mind for a different reason to usual.

Surprised by the impact of Covid

I'm usually focused on maintaining my good health and fitness, but this year has been quite different to any I've known before.

I've had minor ailments and injuries, which mean I'm now focused on improvement rather than maintenance.

The impact I'm feeling this year all started with the occurrence of Covid. Initially, I ate poorly during that first lock down. That lasted a few weeks and although I soon snapped out of the really poor habits (e.g. eating ready made lasagne and baking with my son almost daily, but only having the three of us to eat the resulting cakes and cookies!), I noticed I was still eating more than usual. Then last December, I had Covid and was surprised by how it hit me given I was generally fit and healthy and I’d been vaccinated.

After the initial illness, I was completely worn out. Weeks later even a quick dance around the kitchen or running up the stairs to get something made me breath heavily. I’d heard from a lot of people that they'd tried to exercise too soon after having Covid, so I learnt from their experience and slowed down. I took a whole month off exercise and when I went back, I had the energy for my class. I took it slightly easier than usual, but had a good workout and left feeling great! A couple of hours later, I didn't feel up to doing anything and needed to sleep.

This went on for months and every time I felt I was over it something would happen to remind me that I wasn’t. Like one day during Easter school holidays when I went for a walk with my son, which lasted a few hours, but was a flat countryside walk with a lunch break – nothing I’d consider strenuous. By 5pm he was passing a blanket to me on the sofa and I was struggling to stay awake. My husband came home soon after and I did nothing else that evening. I was so worn out I didn't have the energy to attend my exercise class the next day.

I should have taken is easier

Next came an injury as I was trying to increase my exercise. I made the mistake of keeping up with my instructor’s pace in a class I don't usually take. My quads were killing for days, which probably would have eased had I not thought another exercise class might help. It didn’t! It made things worse. My knee was hurting, then my calf – exacerbated by that calf being weaker. I was in pain simply kneeling, squatting, walking, bending it or straightening it. Even standing on my other leg and spinning around with my son hurt my leg that wasn't bearing any weight. I don't take injuries lightly, as I intend to be active for life, so I had it checked out by a physio and have been doing my exercises.

Next came an ear infection – the first I've ever had in my life. Goodness knows what happened there, but fortunately I had it checked out and treated before it became anything serious. Hopefully that'll be the end of that.

Then I woke up one day with my arm in a strange position (not that strange for me, but not a good position for my shoulder) and that day it was painful. I lowered my arm, it eased off and I thought nothing more of it... Until it was time to get ready for the day and I felt the pain. I did as much as I could with my other hand for the rest of the day, then the next day I struggled to do my hair and get myself ready. I was a little distracted with the pain. It was like that for a couple of days then eased. After that I was mostly okay apart from certain movements, which I avoided as much as I could.

Jack and I then went to visit a friend for the weekend. Travelling just the two of us meant I had the little suitcase, backpack and Jack to manage. On top of the travelling, we were very active, all of which aggravated my shoulder and I ended up in agony. To keep what feels like a long story short, I ended up taking quite strong painkillers. The painkillers eventually helped to reduce the pain, but the side effects were awful, including nausea and sickness.

I have to say here, my husband was amazing (as ever), doing things I couldn't while my shoulder has been out of action. He even ended up doing my hair for most of a week!

Refocusing on what goes into my body

Then, what really highlighted my need to pay attention to what my body is telling me is that I overate. I noticed a few times recently that although I was eating healthy foods, I was also eating rubbish more often than I usually would. I did this too much over our family summer break and ended up ill. This culminated in eating some things my body can't tolerate (something I’m usually vigilant about), so that alone could have caused the issue, but I’m still aware I ate too much.

So, what am I doing about it? Well, I started by looking at my book of healing foods.

It was interesting reading because it's very old and I can see the reason why many of the staples in our kitchen are there…they are bonus foods for health. This book clearly influenced me when I was younger, helping me to form positive habits and the benefits have stayed with me. It also helped me to see why my usual approach to eating helps to keep me healthy.

I'm eating more healthily again and feel fortunate that all I’ve had to do is reduce the things that aren’t good for me, I haven’t had to think about what new to introduce as the good stuff was already there. Over recent weeks, I’ve remembered what I a