Exercise

 

I work (for now), I love, I live, I have fun. Just with wheelchairs and drugs and spasms and stuff...

 
1 January 2023
A profile pic of me, a white middle-aged wheelchair user. Mouth wide open and a green Mohican. In one hand is a lit sparkler. In the other a half drunk glass of champagne. I’m wearing a nonsense load of silly clothes.

My New Year’s Evolutions

Time to utter the traditional refrain, “I’m not very good at New Year’s Resolutions.” Change hurts my MS’d up brain after all. But but but, if I want to continue living a fantabulous life, I need to make some changes to accommodate my progressive and progressing Multiple Sclerosis. 2022 was a toughie. Medical retirement from www.shift.ms  hit me like a long, slow slap round the chops. Three or four months of a total loss of sense of self. A hint of despair. A soupçon of misdirected regret. Oodles of deep, deep sighs. Silly really. I was staying stupidly busy with my family, my speaking engagements, my patient and disability advocacy, my writing, my nonsensing as an anti-fashion guru. Not to […]
15 January 2022
A man in red short-sleeved shirt and dodgy patchwork trousers is sitting outside in his wheelchair. He's in a lovely garden setting (mature trees in the background). He's clearly pretending to work (laptop, headphones) as he has a cheeky smile and a glass of booze

Sodding Multiple Sclerosis and Sodding Covid. My mental health in quiet isolation.

Ironically, whilst trying to write for months about mental health, I have been struggling with a mental block in putting pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard. Actually it’s been so long it should be quill to parchment. So long that the word ‘blog’ probably wasn’t invented and I should call this ‘ye olde chronicle update’. Awkward. I have faintly covered up my failures with virtual speaking engagements and a shiny series of new podcasts, https://www.prca.org.uk/Disability-at-the-Table . Available on all your favourite gramophones now, with a thrilling new episode out soon. So I can blame my workload on a good few distractions and my fave new invented phrase, ‘other nonsensing’. I’ve stayed tastily busy. Not to mention on telly a […]
15 July 2021
A very handsome chap is on a patio, arms wide open and a celebratory look on his face. He is in a Wheelchair Rugby Chair. He's wearing shorts, a white shirt with multicolour shoulder area. And a ridiculous Mohican dyed rusty orange.

How I Found My Exercise Mojo Again

Mark Webb is starring in the latest ‘We Are Undefeatable’ ad campaign – to encourage people with long-term health conditions to get active. [A Guest Blog for the http://MSSociety.org.uk ] He tells us about his journey to becoming a ‘hunk in one bicep’… Pre-diagnosis Once upon a time, I was a high flying school rugby captain and a sporty all-rounder. Then a flashy ski rep living the high life in the Swiss Alps. Then not so long ago but still a distant memory, I worked for a health and fitness brand. Every Saturday I’d be sweating away in the gym and in spin classes. I’d complete an annual triathlon and swim at least twice a week. But something wasn’t right. I would […]
22 January 2021

Making Grand Plans When Multiple Sclerosis Has Other Ideas

Back in the Noughties, I spent a happy three years or so working for the ‘leading premium health and fitness group’, or something like that. Fluffy marketing and pr-speak for David Lloyd Leisure. Thoroughly recommend: https://www.davidlloyd.co.uk/  . It was very much a lifestyle job. If you had a morning meeting, you could bet your bottom dollar – and indeed any excess fat on your bottom – that you would run into other attendees prior to that meeting on a treadmill, or in the pool. Or dosing up on a Full English Breakfast as a reward for all the worthy calorie-crunching. If the meeting was in the afternoon, the same exercise logic applied. But replace ‘Full English’ with ‘Pint of Beer […]