Test at home

Read more: Test at home

The older you get the more conscious you become about your health and the need to test to catch things early. At the same time the more people you like, the more you want them to test too so they can hang out with you, and not die in agony!

I’d been struggling to do a prostate test for years, but it seems, with the modern-day doctors that I use, it’s all a bit of a ballache (go in, collect tubes, take them home, bring them back blah blah), so I was delighted to come across the heavily marked Icle test. Basically, you spend £20 on amazon, it arrives the next, you wee on it, and voila you get your result there and then.

Marvellous.

This article was going to be a free push for the Icle test, but I thought I’d see what other tests are about, and I came across Urinox-10 (on amazon!!).

Rather than one test for £20, it’s basically one test for 30p. ( you still have to buy 30 for, wait for it, £9.99)

By testing your wee , you get early indications of possible problems.

According to their website this sort of means

A 10-parameter urine test strip such as Urinox-10 by Diagnox tests ten different urine parameters that include:

  1. Leukocytes (for possible inflammation)
  2. Nitrites (for bacteria in urine)
  3. Urobilinogen (for liver health)
  4. Protein (for kidney and urinary tract health)
  5. pH (for acidity and alkalinity of the urine sample)
  6. Blood (for visible and non-visible blood in urine)
  7. Specific Gravity (for hydration status and the body’s ability to conserve water)
  8. Ketones (for diabetes and high-fat/low-carb diets)
  9. Bilirubin (for liver health)
  10. Glucose (for diabetes)

You can get them here. (You’ll notice this isn’t an affiliate link). Each test is individually sealed, so they keep for a while.

If there is a drawback it’s that you need to “dip the strip” rather than just wee on it, so you need a reasonably sized container that you can fill to the right height.

Core traumas

Read more: Core traumas

Most dysfunctional behaviour probably comes from trauma, we normally associated trauma with great big awful stuff. However, it seems that it can also accumulate over time. No one considers that the rage, rejection and blame that children are subjected to amounts to trauma

Maybe trauma is the wrong word, maybe its core issues or core wounds. Maybe it’s as classic as the death of a thousand cuts

It seems that numerous petty wounds, accumulated over time can begin to disconnect you from your emotions. Julie Simons in The emotional Eaters Repair Manual gives the following examples of the stuff that you could be subjected to as a child that could have effects later on.

Abandonment: a caregiver dies or is so overworked that they are “not available.

Attack: your caregiver attacks you (everything from a wack to constant aggression, threats, or ridicule

Betrayal: your caregiver lies or makes empty promises.

Blame, you were blamed for the feelings and actions of others

Deceived: you were intentionally misled.

Neglected: simple neglect of your physical and emotional needs

Domination: excessively controlled

Engulfment: you were smothered

Exploitation. You were made to do excessive and age-inappropriate chores

Fragmentation: your caregiver was mentally ill.

parentification. you were made to be responsible for others.

Rejection: dismissed as useless or worthless.

Shame: regularly criticized.

Violation: invasion of your space.

But what could be the mechanism or process? Why would having to do extra chores or get a slap on the back of your legs mean you are unable to control certain aspects of your behavior when you are older?

As a small person, your job is to learn lots of stuff, verbs, going to the toilet, and setting fire to things. You also should learn how to manage your emotions. The correct process of looking after your emotional health is to understand how you feel, then accept those feelings as appropriate, and then make sure you have enough emotional resources to support going forward. Once you have this process, you can move quickly to technical solutions.

However, if you are brought up by idiots, no one asks you how you are. Your emotions are either ignored or discounted. In other words, you are taught to ignore your emotional state. As a child, what do you do? You still have the emotions. You still feel them, fear sadness, and anger (more choice here!).

How do you deal with them? You haven’t been taught how to cope with emotions so you need to soothe yourself. The number one choice of self-medication is food (although later on, it could be drugs, booze, or pornography). Every time you feel joy, sadness, happiness, or failure, you go straight to food. Basically, food becomes the only thing that means you can control your emotions. Where does this get you? It means that realistically you cannot control your food. Food is the only thing that keeps you sane. for years you have used it to push down emotions so it makes sense that you won’t allow it to be restricted or measured. If you do restrict it makes sense that you’ll binge later on during the day.

Maybe this speaks to you.

To keep up to date with fitness, physical therapy and mindfulness tips join my mailing list here:

How to build your memory!

When you’re trying to improve your memory, it’s best to do which of the following? 

1)Rest your mind so that you will have enough energy to remember stuff

2) Multitask

3)Rely on your friends to remember things for you

4)Focus your attention, form associations, and review your
memories

Are you feeling miserable?

Are you feeling sad and down in the dumps

If you’re down in the dumps, what is the best choice? 

1) Hideout from family and friends until you feel up to seeing them
2)Draw the curtains, stay inside, and rest
3) Get out of the house, exercise, and engage in activities
4) Self-medicate with alcohol and/or sweets to soothe your
feelings 

To keep up to date with fitness, physical therapy and mindfulness tips join my mailing list here:

Save your wrists: get some parallette bars

Save your wrists, vary your training. Get some parallettes.

If you regularly push up, L sit and practice handstands the chances are you could end up in intermediate hand and wrist pain.

After too many years of coaching, I’d suggest you seriously consider mixing your hand position up by including the use of parallettes. You can now pick up cheap ones any where, although if you intend to handstand with them, you ought to look at what they are suitable for. That said, Ive bought the cheapie set (pictured) about 10 years ago and Im still alive!

To keep up to date with fitness, physical therapy and mindfulness tips join my mailing list here:

Privacy notice

My contact details 

Name: Andrew Stemler

Address: 66 Ham Park Road E15

Phone Number:07969922831

 E-mail: andrew@andrewstemler.com

The type of personal information I collect 

I currently collect and process the following information:

  • Personal identifiers, contacts and characteristics (for example, name and contact details)

Predict your back pain!

Many have a bout of back pain, then think no more of it. Often you get a second bout! In some cases it turns into chronic long lasting pain that has you demanding pointless MRI’s and screaming for  painkillers like an addict.
This could be your opportunity to  live the rest of your life back pain free. Whilst the isometric flexion tests is only one of many tests, it’s a very useful one. Hook your feet under an object ( or get someone to hold them down) and sit up to 45 degrees with your arms crossed across your chest. Ideally your back is held in a “neutral spinal position”.
Time how long you can hold this position?
The standards are these: men need to be able to hold this position for 136 seconds, women 134 seconds. Less is a substantial  risk factor for future back pain.
If you thought your core was great because you can do lots of  “functional fitness” sit ups and weird crunches, but you fail this test, you need to add soem very specific training to your regime asap.
Incase its news to you,  your core needs to be able to isometrically contract all day long to support your spine! This test  is a very good indicator if you are preparing for that Functional task.
Join the mailing list so I can help you  stay pain free!

The big warning.
Some back pain is really serious: check your RED FLAGS by clicking here