I have ME/CFS, which years ago fundamentally affected my ability to function at 'normal' day-to-day levels. I would sleep all weekend, get home from work, have a bath and got to bed: it wasn't much of a life.
After years of energy management I am pretty close to reaching a normal general energy level. My husband Dave is recovering from severe sciatic back injury that led to drastic muscle loss and depression. So you could say it's been a hard road to get to where we are today.
During a day off sick in January last year, Dave put Long Way Round on, as we were planning a long motorbike trip to Austria, and Ewen and Charley were talking about the importance of being fit for the ride . I have to be honest, it was rather off-putting though seeing what they were doing in the gym. I'm by my own admission "a weakling" and Dave has his back problems so it felt quite intimidating.
Dave suggested we go swimming. It was out the blue but I love swimming so off we went, and we started swimming once a week, we were enjoying this and we wanted to swim more often. We also decided to buy some second hand push bikes.
We spent the summer moving between swimming pools and cycling at weekends, getting longer rides and faster speeds. All the activity was building our confidence and energy levels and we really felt like we were getting more out of life. I even "fell out" ;-D .. of a plane to raise money for Parkinson's UK following my Mum's diagnosis and set up a Facebook page to keep me motivated.
I was becoming addicted to life and I wanted to do more, so decided to take up running, whilst swimming and cycling. As a Mover we were both able to hit the gym regularly as well. We are getting so much more out of life that before. It's not about the physical changes that exercise makes to our body, we don't even own scales, it just makes us feel great. We're enjoying doing things other than sitting at home watching tv, Dave's depression has certainly lifted, I feel better on a day-to-day basis and it's all thanks to introducing exercise into our lives.
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