Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Outdoor Fitness Sessions are going again

Posted 1:40pm

 It feels fantastic to be back on Highbury Fields with our exercise sessions.

Last lockdown, in April, we actually started doing daily sessions, which ran all the way through to December, and then of course came the big lockdown.

We have restarted on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday mornings at 9:30am, on the large field on Highbury Fields, near to the closed off road in the middle, the Highbury Place side around two benches down (that sounds so complicated, but anyone can find us).

Om Tuesdays, due to funding from Camden Giving, we have our incredible Personal Trainer Dean (PT Zombie) putting us through our places, and on Wednesday and Saturday our very own Lazza takes over and makes us all sweat.

Now, all I need to do is start losing my lockdown weight!!!  Lol

Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Izzwalkz is back again - great to be walking

Posted 1:25pm

Absolutely delighted to report that we have managed to restart our walks, as we are officially a support group too, so can have more that the two households and rule of 6.

Here we are last Thursday in Clissold Park, and what a fantastic group we had.  Yes, some of the group have mobility issues, and the average age is something I dare not think about, but we all have a laugh, chat, and get outdoors and are social - isn't that what it's all about?

We walk every Thursday, meeting outside Highbury Grange Medical Practice, Highbury Grange, N5, at 11am, and normally get back to the practice around 12:15pm after taking a route into Clissold Park.

This Thursday walk is quite leisurely, due to the mobility, but nobody seems to mind, and in fact it is delightful to get everyone together.

We have also started a walk around Highbury Fields (which is a little faster doing three laps) on a Friday morning, for people who are in more of a hurry.  We meet outside Highbury Leisure Centre at 9:30am. :-)

Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Update on Lazza's Recipes

Posted 1:20pm

The photo was the Beef Stroganoff!!!!

Way back in Issue 3 of our weekly health packs, our Lazza decided to start a recipe page, but one with a difference.  Each week he was going to prepare a meal, dessert, or a baking item, that he had never cooked from scratch before.  And, wow, it worked fantastically.

Lazza had obviously cooked before, but using shop sauces, or prepared sachet mixes.  Baking, however, was completely alien to him.

Every week, for the pack, he would take photos of the ingredients, and the finished product, and each pack was the genuine first attempt.

It was a way of showing people that it was never too late to try something new, and that challenging yourself can be productive.  I, honestly, cannot recall any meal or bake that came out bad.  In fact, I was astonished at just how tasty some of the recipes were.  To make chicken supreme, lamb hotpot, coffee and walnut cake, cheesecake, carrot cake (there were quite a few cakes), was brilliant.

All 48 recipes are in PDF form on our website.  Why not give some a go?

www.hmhb2016.org.uk

Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Update on Weekly Health Packs - and new Monthly Health Pack

Posted 1:10pm

Who would have guessed just how big our Health Packs would get?  Certainly, not us.

Last April, HMHB decided they wanted to be part of the mental health intervention, but we wanted to do something different to anyone else.  We like to forge our own path.  So we decided to come up with a weekly health pack, focusing on promoting a growth mind-set mentality, guiding people on nutritional information to keep the body functioning properly, describing various ways people could be active and exercise, and provide health information on many subjects that are relevant to well being and overall good health.  We also mixed it up with recipes, quizzes, online classes, and much more.

From an original 10 pages, it grew to a weekly 26 pages pack, that went around the world, was shared with multiple organisations, companies, and individuals.  It was posted to people, delivered to people and emailed to people.  In the end there were over 200 email addresses, and we know we reached over 2000 people weekly due to the sharing of other organisations.

Feedback was stunning.  The resident psychologist for a mental health charity in Islington told us the packs were terrific, for example.  Above is a photo of one of our amazing walkers and exercise users, Angela, who is in her 80s, reading a copy in her front garden!!!

Eventually, we did 50 weekly packs, and felt that was pretty good.  We were soon contacted by various people asking for us to continue to provide something, so we decided to launch a Monthly Health Pack instead, the first issue coming out three days ago for May - 36 pages of our unique assistance.  We are not psychiatrists, psychologists, or case workers.  But we do have history of overcoming some huge mental obstacles, and people seem to love the way we share our knowledge.

All 50 of the weekly packs are in PDF form on our website. www.hmhb2016.org.uk

Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Update on Haringey Course with Well Being Network

Posted 12:55pm

We have three weeks left of our Ajani course with Haringey Well Being Network, which we started back in February after winning funding from Haringey Giving.

It has been on Mondays, so there has been a couple of Bank Holiday interventions, but we have thoroughly enjoyed our time, delivering first via Zoom from their Stapleton Hall Road address in Haringey, to then having people actually attend that address.

It has been a slight learning curve for us, as this was the first time we have attempted this intervention online, and it naturally brings up its own issues.  The interaction within our course is one of our selling points, and this was a lot tougher online.  Personally, I feel that mental health assistance is more effective if face to face, although we do recognise the problems that Covid 19 has brought forward.

Overall, so far we have worked with eight different individuals, all of whom have told us they enjoy what we do (with one saying - and I quote - it was good to see you weren't ar*e holes!!!)

We know we have been effective, and we thank Haringey Well Being Network, and Mind In Haringey, for allowing us the opportunity to work with their clients, as well as Haringey Giving for seeing our potential and funding this chance.

I know this course has worked, and we have three weeks still to go.  It makes us even more keen to work with more people.  Yay!!!

Tuesday May 4th 2021 - Back to blogging!!! - So much has happened

Posted 12:45pm

I am going to make several entries today, as it has been an astonishing three months since I last blogged - and that is not good at all.  I feel embarrassed, and even a little silly, as I have been meaning to update this on multiple occasions, as we have been very busy in the last quarter.

It is funny how we can procrastinate, all with the best intentions.

So there will be quite a few entries today, so I do hope you will check them all out.

And, I know I always say this, but I will try and keep much more up to date in the future.

:-)  Lazza

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 - our first four weeks of Haringey course

Posted 11:30am

We had a fabulous chat with Haringey Well Being yesterday afternoon, discussing our first ever virtual course - our first ever twelve week intervention - and our first course since the Covid pandemic started last March/April.  And we have got a corker planned!!!  Part of that is down to completing so many of these packs, which has provided us with a plethora of new information and knowledge.

Here are our first four weeks for the upcoming course, as we described in an email to Haringey this morning.

Week one:

Mindset - how do we think?  how do we make decisions?

Nutrition - what is nutrition exactly.  We discuss metabolism, and how nutrition is really about providing nutrients for the chemical reactions in our bodies to keep us alive, as well as keeping us fully fuelled and energised, and the dangers of what happens if we do not ingest the right amount of macronutrients and micronutrients.

Exercise - we demonstrate stretches with the whole class - some good basic ones - why we do them - how they affect the body, using our qualified personal trainer - this with static and dynamic stretching involved, but obviously working around any health issues people may have, which we also discuss.

Health/Routine - we give an overview of how miraculous our bodies are, and talk about responsibility, choice, and being proactive in our routines.

Week two:

Mindset - we look at the various types of Mind-set, covering the most important six of them, and how a growth, active, and social mindset are all important.

Nutrition - this week we look at the importance of Protein as a macronutrient, how it becomes amino acids, and what they do for us

Exercise - we have a look at easy, middle, and harder versions of the basic exercises, and how you can do them sitting, standing, using walls and chairs if needs be - with our qualified personal explaining how to do them properly too. (squats, crunches, press ups, plank, cardio)

Health - topically we look at the Immune System - how it works and what we need to do to keep it healthy - we also look at why we sweat, cough, and sneeze. ( we will discuss importance of vaccine too)

Week three:

Mindset - we have our own analogy about life - and we use it as a train journey, with stations, mixing in carriages, etc.

Nutrition - this week we look at the importance of Carbohydrates as a macronutrient, the difference between simple and complex, what happens in the body:  plus fibre

Exercise - using the exercises we covered in week two, we create our very own HMHB HIIT session, accessible for all ages and abilities, that can be done in 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes or beyond.

Health - this week we look at the digestive system, how everything has to work together, how we keep it healthy, and the impact it has on our overall health.

Week four:

Mindset - we cover the great subject of motivation.  how hard it can be. how we can improve our self-motivation. why it is so important.

Nutrition - this week we cover sugars, looking at the four main ways we get it in the body, which are better for us, and the dangers of added sugar and how it affects the body

Exercise - we look at yoga, balance, tai chi, and various stretch type exercises - how they improve our overall health, and what is happening in our bodies when we do them

Health - we cover the Brain this week.  How does it actually function, what do we need to do to keep it healthy and the dangers if we do not use it enough.

Very happy with how that has come out.  I do not mind giving our content away like this, as it is our quite unique delivery style that has garnered so much great feedback, and the way we present the course is different to any I have been on before.  Surely any kind of learning has to be fun?