“I’m not me, I haven’t been me in a long time & I don’t know who ‘me’ is any more”.

If you haven’t experienced bad mental and physical health, you might not ‘get‘ my first sentence, and trust me unless you’ve gone through the wringer you really will never understand it. That’s a good thing, be proud of it and try to be understanding to those of us who have. We’ve been through hell and back and might not have let anyone close enough to let them know we have. We’ve smiled while you’ve told us something that you didn’t know was hurting us, we’ve said were ‘OK‘ when were not. Every day is a battle.

Be kind to each other, the worlds a bad enough place without being horrible to each other.

Mind

So, who am I? I’m a 40(ish) year old man that has been suffering from depression for over a decade, I have health issues, I’ll get on to that later. I lost my best friend suddenly the Christmas before last. We’d found a connection, with each other in our outlook and our health issues. It was the sort of connection that you have when you both understand the pain, tiredness and how it affects you mentally. For a long time, he had been my source of strength, he’d been suffering from ill health too and we’d both been there for each other.

Then one day, when I’m stuck 100 miles away, he’s gone, and I can’t get to him. It was one of the most soul emptying events I have ever experienced. I still talk to him and ask his advice. I don’t know what he’d think of this blog, but as long as I don’t post selfies and food porn, I suspect that he won’t smite me from the heavens. He was the best of us, kind and selfless, funny, rude.

Body

In the last 3 years, I’ve had both hips replaced. The most recent operation was in April. Thankfully it has gone well, and my hip is healing well. My hips (and other joints) have been damaged due to a condition that is known as AVN. Avascular Necrosis, sometimes known as Osteonecrosis. Fundamentally, the bone dies due to reduced blood flow into and around the bone. During the time I’ve been forced to use walking sticks and crutches and to give up one of the two things keeping me going. The Gym.

Before my body started to fail me, I was doing fantastic things at the gym. I was the fittest I’ve ever been, had a V-shaped back and was on track to become a ‘muscle bear‘. But AVN put a nail in that coffin. My personal trainer was a friend, who had been through a lot himself when he set up his own gym I so wanted to get back and join, but I couldn’t, and I feel like I let him down.

Diet

My diet has been frankly rubbish, I overeat, and not enough of the things I should be. So now my hips are ‘fixed‘ I’m going on a food journey back to normality. This blog certainly isn’t going to be salads, salads, salads and skinny water, it will be low carb, high protein and hopefully, the recipes will be tasty. In the past, I found a diet known as the TNT diet to work wonders and to be maintainable as well as enjoyable, so I’m going to go down the low-carb route again, and, Hey, any diet that’s OK with alcohol is a good thing.