Patient.co.uk | Mum In The Madhouse

Patient.co.uk

I know that I am not the healthiest that I could be.  This is a mixture of ongoing medical issues, but also down to lack of exercise on my part too.  However, I hate being bombarded with new year new you fitness and diet plans, so was really skeptical when introduced to Patient.co.uk.

I completed a short questionnaire about my health, including some questions on diet, lifestyle, exercise and so on. It took about 10 minutes and at the end I was given a Q Score of between 1 and 100, which ranked me in an imaginary queue of people where 100 is perfect health and 0 is very poor health.

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I was placed in a medium risk band (you didn’t think I was going to tell you my score did you…………..), which was what I expected and it also told me that I could improve my score by improving my diet and also my introducing exercise in to my lifestyle.  This was not unexpected!

One new thing I did learn though is that as  I carry my weight in my stomach this makes me a greater risk than one who carries more weight below the waistline. While being overweight is never good, being ‘pear’ shaped is better than being ‘apple’ shaped.  I am at risk of coronary heart disease, as excess body weight places extra strain on the heart, as it must pump harder to circulate blood throughout the body.

It also made some suggestions for increasing my exercise including:

  • Try starting your day with some gentle stretching – either lying on your bed or soon after you get up. A couple of minutes is all it takes to loosen you up and it really can be quite invigorating.
  • Always warm up before your exercise session with 5 to 10 minutes light intensity movement followed by some light stretching of the main muscle groups that you’ll be using.
  • Make sure you stay well hydrated – increasing your exercise levels will mean that you need to drink more fluids before, during and after exercise in order to keep mind and body working at their best.

Thankfully our family manifesto of getting active and on our bikes should help me increase my exercise levels.

I liked that it didnt bully me, it just presented me with the facts and with suggestions for making changes.  Why not give it a try yourself.

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