Author Archives: pilko

farewell Aircast Foam Walker

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Today I’m pleased to farewell my Aircast Foam Walker aka “Moon Boot”

Faced with an ankle that was getting worse than better I had a foam walker prescribed.

Late last week I was ready to come out of of it, but I’m working on a very conservative front right now and wanted to make sure I had both specialist and Physio advise on managing with out it. It’s great at immobilizing your ankle, but it comes at a hell of a cost.

You can’t get around as easily and you do have to inflate and deflate it each day. In my case it gave me stability and with the assistance of crutches meant I could get around a lot more easily.

The time is now to stop using it and to re-train my ankle to cope with the load I’m putting on it. I decided to use the weekend to master this as I’m only going to put myself in familiar surroundings plus if I need to rest which I do need to frequently that’s fine. I don’t have to be anywhere on the weekend.

So thank you for your assistance, it’s be helpful, but your fired! (can’t believe I just typed that!)

Blog wall paper

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When I first created this blog a few weeks ago I wanted a picture for the wall paper.

A white or black background just didn’t seem to work.

A quick Internet search came up with a black brick wall.

This works for me on so many ways:-

  • I’m staring at a brick wall
  • I’m trying to climb a brick wall
  • I’m faced with a wall

It’s not meant to dwell on problems, more of the challenges ahead we face.

This blog is about those challenges and how I’ve dealt with them.

Questions, Questions, Questions

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So I’ve got a lot to share and trying to work out how to best share it with anyone.

Tonight’s topic is questions, there isn’t such a thing as a dumb question, well there probably is, but if you don’t understand something for goodness sake ask!

I prepare for all the consults I have and am borderline OCD.

One key example is today I visited my Physio, I’ve been consulting with her on a weekly bases since late January but due to Easter and me being away today was our first consult in three weeks.

A lot of things have changed in that time, so I find the best way is to write down a list of topics/questions I have and then refine them.

Personally I use Evernote which is available for free for both windows and iPhone, it means I can sync notes between my phone, iPad and computers.

If  you ever have one of those 2am moments where you think of something you can record it for later.

I find that while I deeply appreciate the many consults I have with people, if I go in with my list of items to cover I get a lot more out of it.

I think my Physio is beginning to dread my iPad, normally I only use my phone to raise questions, but if I have more to cover out comes the iPad.

What this post is really about is you get out what you put in, plus it builds on the “believe on yourself post”

I don’t always ask the “right” question nor do I always get time to ask them all, but I find starting off with a summary and working my way through with them works a treat.

My Physio particularly loves this as it means that the consult is structured and it give her a great indication of where I’m at and where I’m focused.  There are times when you may not be able to be this prepared and that’s fine too. Consistency of care is important in these cases so the professionals you work with will get to know you and be able to “read you” for a large part of the consult, but they of course will still ask questions!

Ask away my friends, if your as lucky as me your working with some amazing people and they are only too happy to share their wealth of knowledge with you.

Belive in yourself

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So the past couple of weeks have been really interesting.

Until yesterday I have been getting around with a Aircast Foam Walker (Moon boot) and crutches. Today with advise the moon boot is gone and it’s just crutches for about a week.

One of the key things I’ve found with my journey so far is you need to believe in yourself. I know it sounds dogy, something you’d see on an infomercial, but if you can’t confide in yourself, honestly what hope have you got!

Now I’m not saying that you can do this by yourself, you need to have a good support network, this is the key. You Need to believe in yourself that you can do what your setting out to achieve and as part of that surround yourself with the right people. That’s where “Team Pilko” comes in. I didn’t know how to exercise or cook. Did I believe I could do it, yes I did! Could I do it myself? Well not really.

So embrace change, motivate yourself where you can and take advise, you’ll be the better for it!

No news is good news

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So after creating quite a few posts in about 48 hours I’ve been spending time going back over the text I’ve written and removed quite a few “pilko” errors, wrong words and some paragraphs that were true ramplings.

I’m on leave from work right now, but am choosing to use this time to take a big step back from social media and other online parts of my life and I really need to re-group right now.

It’s all good, it’s great about once or twice a year to switch off and relax, this is what I’m doing.

Will ramp up the posts over the weekend.

Mobility

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So right now I’m struggling big time, I’m bouncing around various health professionals trying to get the right advise.

In all of this I still have to be able to get around. It hurts to walk, it hurts to sit.

I’ll post about my rehab later but for now let me share whats working for me

The aircast foam walker also known as a moon boot stabilizes my ankle with air cells either side

The other thing that has helped is ergo grip elbow crutches. Normal crutches don’t work for me and with so much force on my hands the ergo crutches work so much better ( photo to come)

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Cookware

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So a little while ago I decided we needed some new cookware, put it out to Facebook and scan pan was the go, David jones had a cookware sale on so score! RRP $1000 mine to take home for about $400-$500 bargain!

They are great kit which I use daily

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Motivation

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It’s interesting in life what can motivate people, wealth, power, greed?!?

In my case it was a feeling of feeling lonely and isolated, I also wanted more out of life.

I’ve started the road back to fitness and along the way it seems like I’ve motivated people.

I work in a team of at 5, it was common place us to all live off junk food then after people noticed me dropping the kilos all of a sudden the reduction of junk food occurred. Now   I can’t take all the credit a couple have do or are traveling overseas but all in all they have turned their diets around.

Mind you the bastards still get KFC from time to time, they no better to ask me if I want it. I’ve actually had KFC a couple of times in the past few months, but it’s been a small serving I’ve only eaten half of a regular chips and the chicken has been in a twister not a fat laden burger or piece of chicken. I actually prefer to cook my own on my new cookware.

The other motivation which is now turning to be co-motivation is an ex college and friend Leigh, he’s started his own journey and even posted about me http://www.77in7.com/2012/04/shout-out.html?spref=tw Leigh’s plan is to loose 77lbs in 7 months about 35kg.

Best wishes to Leigh

I’ve also had a couple of great motivators in my journey (there are many) but will share two important ones.

PT, my PT is a great guy, I’m motivated, a little bit too keen at time, he’s coped with my injury really well and we’ve been doing modified workouts for the past month or so. We’re down to 30 minutes a week and apart from moving stations I’m seated the entire time.

I’m not cleared for any weight baring exercise, so even with that limitation I still give my upper body a damn good work out and fatigue those muscles!

Emma “bouncing Emma” or “Emma on caffeinated protein shakes” is one of those annoying fitness people but all in the right ways.

A group exercise instructor at my gym she’s instructed an aqua x-train class as well as a boxing x-train class. There’s something about this woman that makes me give 150%, well beyond what I think I’m able to give, yet she smiles and coarseness you all the way, it hurts you sweat but some how your drawn in for more.

Emma has moved on from the gym but we are still keeping in touch. This is great as she’s been a real inspiration despite me splashing her during one of the classes and striking her in the chest with a punch when she got distracted while pad holding.

Tough but fair is our Emma

The begining

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You have to start somewhere so lets wind the clock back to the start of 2011

I’m lucky to enough to work somewhere where there is a commercial kitchen on site that prepares meals for a few hundred folk a day.

I approached the catering manager and asked if it were possible for the kitchen to provide lunch for me (obviously at a cost to me) we agreed and lunch started.

In the past for me any exercise “kick” has had to follow diet changes. If you live on junk food you aren’t getting the nutrients your body needs to function.

As a result your always tired, have no energy or motivation.

I used to eat way from home for 99% of ALL meals.

So lunch started being provided and instead of eating “the burger special” from the local lunch shop I now had fresh salads and meets with a piece of fruit. Typically a banana or apple.

I don’t remember the exact order in which this occurred but 2011 gave me a couple of decent health scares. Firstly I woke up one morning with severe chest pain, felt like I was sleeping under an elephants foot. I knew it wasn’t heart burn because I’ve had that before. This was chronic pain. I logged onto the heart foundation website to check to see if I was having  a heart attack.

I honestly wasn’t sure, being a bloke I figured it would pass, so despite feeling really poor I got dressed and headed for work. The pain was so bad I could hardly cope having the seat belt on my chest. I got to work and the pain killers kicked in and it cleared.

I decided that if that was a warning I head i loud and cleared. Visited my regular GP and got a referral to a cardiologist.

Quickly got a stress test done and despite being very unfit (I only half completed the test) I past.

Later in 2011 I had routine blood work done and my blog glucose was showing as impaired.  My GP had me do a glucose tolerance test and yep, I had a glucose level that diabetics strive for. So Doc’ tells me if I don’t soon do something I’m headed for type 2 diabetes if I don’t make changes inside of 12 months.

This was on top of my blood pressure which I’m told at the time I very high.

Time to do something.

I had consulted a dietician some years ago and her and her husband run a dietary and personal training business.

I had emailed her some months prior asking if I could consult with her again and she said it would be best for me to meet with one of her dieticians on staff.

I never followed up.

I made contact with this dietician and i started from there.

It was great, this guy seemed to want to listen to pilko’s story, his view was that he wanted to learn how we got here. Simply really, stop riding your push bike when you get your drivers license, fall into the wrong crowd who live off take away and have a home environment that hates to cook.

So we started to learn about what to not eat and what things to eat. Each fortnight I’d start off with a new list of things to try and we talked about “trolley control” that is, don’t keep temptations in the house, if you don’t put them in the trolley they don’t get into the pantry.

I was also taught to read food labels, important to work out what goes in your mouth.

I went grocery shopping and it took ages, I stopped bought things I’d never bought before or in a long time.I must of spent a good 15minutes at the dairy case looking for “healthier cheese” and a good 10 minutes in the breakfast cereal aisle making sure I bought “the right” cereal.

So I had my diet getting under control.

What the hell do to about exercise.

Two options personal training and group classes.

So I emailed this private PT gym and spoke with the managing director, we met had a chat worked out what I wanted. He paired me up with Sean. We met and started weekly workouts for an hour.

I also started group classes

I can’t remember how it developed but my exercise program was thus:-

Sunday 45 minutes Group Aqua Class + 90 minutes Pilates (group basic class)

Monday 45 minutes Group Aqua Class (later dropped for the 6:15am 55 minute boxing x-train class with Emma who I’ll talk about later)

Tuesday 1 hour Personal Training 1 one 1

Wednesday 45 minutes Group Aqua Class

Saturday morning 45 minutes Group Aqua Class

That was a lot, but it was working well, I started to drop kilos, exercise was great, loving the adrenaline made some new friends and made this a lifestyle change. It all fitted well into place.

Boxing

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So at my prime I was up at 5am headed to gym for a 6:15am boxing class this is a before photo. Yes the bandanna makes me look like a tool but with boxing comes sweat, with glasses that’s a problem. With bandanna no more sweat issues, just remember to wash it!

I love to work out frustrations and I like a mental and physical challenge.

I have no sense of co-ordination just ask my work mates about how pilko is legendary for not catching things. I’m a big guy so I tire quickly.

Put that all together and boxing is a great way to burn off fat, increase fitness while working out frustrations. I won’t tell you just yet what I focus on when hitting the pads!