Marginal Gains

From doing the first thing that you do after getting diagnosed which is go on the internet, as I said before DON’T DO THAT! I learned on some of the more useful websites the things I could do to make my life a little bit better. I say little because it literally is that however this is where marginal gains come into play and lots of these little things add up to one big thing
  The first thing I did was give up smoking which I have found I can do quite easily, for some I know that would be difficult for some people but I literally had my last one then said I have stopped. Had the few weeks of “I really need a faaaaaag” then I’m through it, It’s made a lot of difference not only from lung capacity but from not smelling like an ashtray too.  The next one was give up drinking; this was easy too although not really cheaper as I have visited pubs that a pint of diet coke has almost cost the same as a pint of beer. I will give you this warning about it though, when you give up drinking you get issued with a new permit called the designated driver card where you will constantly get asked to go out with your friends knowing you can be the driver while they all get s**tfaced and rely on you as the uber home. This does have the advantage though of not feeling like crap the next day too.  Another thing I turned to was fitness and signed up for a gym, it was daunting as hell when I first went there with a lot of people who were thinner, better looking and more skilled on everything but I quickly learned everybody is there to get better and don’t give a toss about other people there, as soon as you learn this you will be fine and we all had to start somewhere. This leads onto fork theory and we will discuss that in another post. I’m a big believed in that.  Take regular breaks, you will get tired both physically and mentally but just take a break from it and come back fresh. Think of this as the trick of flipping the battery out of the remote control and putting it in again. It’s not going to give you more power but will make you last a bit longer and maybe change channels one more time.  Consider a vegetarian diet. Yes, I was one of those people that watched gamechangers but one point stuck with me and that was it helps with inflammation. If you have been doing your research MS attacks the myelin in your brain and spine and causes inflammation. No brainer really. From knowing what meat tastes like and knowing I like a lot of meaty things Chrisi over the course of 2 weeks made every dish I like but in vegetarian form, burgers, Mexican, pizza all of which tasted delicious. The only thing that will never ever be able to be replicated in bacon, Mmmmmmmmmmmm bacon. Oh well it’s a big sacrifice, I mean small.  Vitamin D3, daily capsule, swallow, repeat daily, get from your health shop.  Oxygen therapy, don’t worry I’ll do a separate post on this too but think along the lines of its like having the batteries changed every week and a lot of places do it free if you suffer from MS, I visit Harrow MS centre once a week for it and when I’m doing it I write my blog post and meet my second mum Paulette. The other staff there are also amazing too, Apeksha, tash, Miriam, Lynn, Katie and of course my actual mum who volunteers there too.  Stress, probably a tricky one but you can do things to manage it like bodybalence and yoga to let my head switch off from things and let it reset. A few years ago I’d never think of doing this but now I swear by it.  Those are just a few of my marginal gains but they all add up to 1 big one which is I’m still here and still fighting it.