In this guest blog Gabriella Howson, Managing Director of Tonicity Ltd, talks about the importance of exercising your hidden muscles.
As women and mums our children come first. We make time for ourselves, our own health and a little TLC when we can. One thing that medical professionals tell us after we have our babies is to look after our core body and pelvic floor muscles. However that piece of advice is normally one we forget pretty quickly, concentrating more on the parts of us that we can see.
It’s easy to worry about how flat our tummies are, what size clothes we fit into and what we look like - all of that matters and makes a difference – but the muscles that we can’t see are hugely important too and the effects of weak muscles are horrendous. The pelvic floor and core body muscles are among the most important in our body. They control a wide variety of functions including our posture, how we move, how much we enjoy sex and also providing bladder control. Two in three women in the UK have weak pelvic floor muscles, while one in three of us has such weak muscles that we have embarrassing leaks or lower back pain which at the most extreme can lead to a prolapse.
There are exercises you can do to keep yourself in good shape, devices which are designed to help, drugs which can reduce some of the symptoms but generally have side effects or you can have surgery to correct the more extreme conditions. However there are also new alternative treatments which tones these vital muscles and, for the first time, give you feedback on how well you’re doing.
Jeanette Haslam, internationally recognised specialist in women’s physiotherapy, says, “Most pelvic floor conditions are avoidable or even curable but women do not know about options. Pelvic floor training techniques are something that all women need to know about.”
These treatments are available from Tonicity, the first specialised women’s health and beauty centre in the UK. All our treatments are designed to show and improve the condition of your pelvic floor or core body muscles. Tonicity is run by women including a number of highly trained women’s health professionals. All ourr staff are from a nursing or specialist physiotherapy background and have many years experience in helping women get back on their feet and feeling great again.
For more details of the treatments on offer please visit www.tonicity.eu, Tel: 0845 269 2603 or Email: info@tonicitygroup.com
Popularity: 1% [?]
Toning your hidden muscles
After a post-Christmas weigh-in I find myself with something of a problem. I am the heaviest I have ever been (including being pregnant) and I need to lose weight. Yes I’m a mummy, but this is not Baby Fat. This is Toddler Fat. Let me explain……
‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen’ (Bobby – age 7). In an ideal world this would indeed be the case. One of the best parts of Christmas can be family get togethers, however it can also be the part many of us dread.. There is an over-riding expectation that people who may not often see each other (and may not get on) will come together, eat & drink too much away from the comfort of home, and will all be happy!
I don’t know about you, but Christmas seems to have become a huge retail opportunity and December seems to have been overtaken by school plays, parties and shopping for endless presents, cards and food. Plus the hype starts so early these days, with shops & TV adverts advertising Christmas months in advance. Some years you can arrive at the big day itself totally exhausted, and glad it’s almost all over!
A week ago I posted a very flippant comment on Twitter to this effect: “Have developed a bit of a ‘thing’ about brightly coloured clothes since becoming a mum. I’m terrified I’ll disappear completely otherwise…” At the time I thought it was quite amusing but the more I thought about it, I felt like I had scratched the surface of something much deeper, to do with my own identity and how that has changed since I’ve had children.
One of the times I started to feel this most was on the school run, particularly on grey, rainy days. Then all the mums seemed to morph into a sea of black, grey or navy coats and umbrellas. So to counter this, last year I bought myself the brightest pink raincoat I could find, with clashing green lining. Normally I wouldn’t dream of buying a coat that colour – coats should be practical and neutral so they go with anything. But it was suddenly really important to me to stand out from that crowd. This year I have bought another winter coat which is brightest turquoise I could find. And as a finishing touch, I have bought a stripy scarf and glove set, made up of every colour of the rainbow, so they will go with whichever of the loud and garish coats I am wearing!
Halloween has become a massive event in the UK over the last few years, and the shops have been packed for weeks with all sorts of accessories, dressing up gear and decorations. This is all very well, but if you want to celebrate Halloween with your children, once you’ve dressed up, what can you actually DO? Some prefer not to trick or treat, and some may be too young, so what are the alternatives? I have hosted a few parties so here are some ideas to help you along with some Halloween fun with just your own or a room full of children……
Now my children are at school we have entered the realm of friends coming to play after school, and usually for tea as well. So what do you feed them? You want them to be happy, and to eat, and generally the obvious staple is fish fingers or chicken nuggets , chips and beans . However I have been trying some alternatives which provide something a little more varied and balanced and will still please my own children who are very fussy eaters.
I currently find myself in the enviable position of having both my children at school, and having gone through a period of ‘mourning’ at losing my babies, the day is my own to fill as I wish. When I was a stay at home mum most days had a vague routine of naps and feeds interspersed with activities - staying in, going to groups, visiting friends and fitting in the shopping, washing, cleaning as and when I could. Now my day has a clearly defined structure; 9am – 3pm are child free hours – free from routine and demands, for me to fill as I wish!
I am shocked and bewildered by an aggressive backlash to the recent Mumpreneur Conference in Birmingham, with delegates being accused of attending a ‘discriminatory’ event. One delegate has even been ‘dumped’ by a contact after discovering she had attended the conference. So what can have possibly caused the UK Mumpreneurs to be singled out and vilified over what was supposed to be a celebration of achievement?
