I'm not SuperWoman - Caroline's Fashion Styling

I feel like I’ve written posts about life resolutions and so forth a few times over the last year already….almost so that I feel stupid writing yet another one but I really feel a bit different this time. This one is going to be a bit of a long one but I feel that the story needs to be told properly before I start documenting this new chapter.

Let me start at the beginning, so a bout a month and a half ago I was in a pool playing with my little niece, I lifted her out of one pool to another and my back literally jammed – to the point that I needed someone else to come take over caring for her whilst I attempted to figure out a way to ease the pain. The pain subsided after a bit but I was left feeling stiff, unable to move properly, and well, still in a bit of pain. My conclusion was that I’d pulled a muscle, this was right before a girls weekend and a week before my cruise trip, plus let’s face it my life is always way too full – this was super inconvenient and I was angry and annoyed. To make it worse, the hubby was away which meant I needed to carry things like a 6-pack of water and stuff. I don’t like feeling limited, I’m the type of person who always feels they can do anything however impossible it might seem, feeling limited in this manner took a mental toll.

I visited a wonderful eastern medicine doctor who confirmed my worst fear, an injury I had been aware of about ten years ago and thought I had resolved, had never really gone away but had turned into chronic and left my spine weak and unsupported. It took me a while to accept, so much so, that on the cruise I went to the gym every day as usual and jumped around and lifted weights, not really paying attention to any possible consequences. Obviously, it got worse, resulting in me being barred from such activities. Gym is a part of my daily routine, yes I have weeks where I skip and I’ve never been a pro but it’s my stress relief, my hour away from work. Also, I don’t like being told that I can’t do something. I had a few acupuncture sessions which eased the pain a lot but I wanted to correct any underlying issues too.

I got lucky, I had been going to the gym at Niumee for a few months but hadn’t used a personal trainer, was just training myself. I decided to go anyway, just to walk and stretch and that was when I met Stephen Moghrabi. Steve is a fitness instructor and massage therapist specialised in injury prevention and muscle manipulation. He is obsessed (maybe a bit too obsessed – sorry if you’re reading this) in rehabilitating the body using bio-mechanics to correct the body structure and movement. Honestly, he is scarily passionate about it and about fixing injuries and improve muscle imbalances. He saw me walking on the treadmill and felt he had to explain to me how badly I walked, how badly my hips were aligned, how my muscles are pulling in the wrong directions and well basically how I was screwing up my body by not correcting these basic biomechanics. Wrong biomechanics is one of the primary cause of chronic injuries, I knew mine isn’t perfect but I thought the custom insoles I own, simply fixed everything. Apparently not.

So for the first time in my life I’m doing proper personal training with a full program and nutrition monitoring (insert cry face here), yes, apparently I need to also keep a food diary, it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been postponing this one – can I really tell him about all the crisps chocolate? Also, in general, I’m simply not used to being ordered around, I’ve done classes and some sort of training on certain equipment in the past but not like this, here I kind of feel a bit bullied. In a good way, just, it’s me, I hate being told I’m doing something wrong. The thing is, I felt better after one session in that, I felt I was auto-correcting my posture throughout the day which meant less pain. I’ve been going twice a week for 3 weeks now and he keeps filming me so I can see the improvement, there is some, although there’s still a way to go.

What is both great and not great is that I started my new job at exactly the same time. It’s good because I have a bit of a routine and I’m really liking the new job, in general, I’m more inclined to take care of myself when I’m happy. What isn’t great is that I spend so much time sitting down, often in meetings on uncomfortable chairs, not exactly the greatest thing for my back.

Anyway, this post is already too long and it’s time to call it a night – the next steps are to continue gaining strength and Stephen will also use massage therapy to ease all the chronically stiff muscles I am a proud owner of. Will keep you posted.