The 10000 step challenge

The Blackpool Victoria Hospital works to bring funds from many sources. One such source is the Blue Skies Charity Fund which works with the aim to collect funds for the hospital and its large requirement of money throughout the year. The BSCF runs many ongoing programs and periodically unfurls smaller campaigns that help the fund as well as the participants in some way or the other. Recently, it announced a fitness campaign that encourages employees of the hospital as well as anyone else who wishes to participate, to walk 10 thousand steps daily for an entire month. In this case, it happens to be January. 

I joined the campaign wholeheartedly, as I am all out to improve my fitness levels. It then asks participants to try and get others to "join" in the fun by donating money to support your effort. The donated money goes to the fund, and not to you. As part of the effort, therefore, I created a campaign page for myself at THIS site. Do click on the "THIS" to take you to my page. You will see my progress here, and if you wish to, you can donate to the BSCF and indirectly extend your support both to me, and to the fund, which is doing great work for the time it has been around. 

So far, I have been able to achieve my target and even go past it every day. As I could not join on the first of January, I have started the campaign from the 8th of the month. Today is the fifth day of my campaign, and I must say I am surprised at my own stamina in trying to reach, and then go past, the daily goal. 

To enable me to count my daily steps, I first downloaded an app to my phone, but found it cumbersome to carry my phone around everywhere. Also, when my battery ran out, the phone simply stopped counting my steps, as it happened on the second day, To avoid this, I ordered a wrist band that has the capability not only to count my steps, but also to monitor my heart rate, the calories I burn every day, the number of stairs I climb daily and show me the time as well. This device comes from FITBIT, and the MODEL I use cost me about INR 8000. It arrived within 24 hours, and I have been using it since Saturday afternoon. It has been an awesome experience. 

My aim is to cross the monthly target of 310000 steps. This is equivalent to about 215 km, or a little over 7 km a day. So far, it is going well indeed. I have reached over 55000 steps in the nearly 5 days that I am monitoring myself. That is over 35 km. 

I am also gymming, but not six days a week, just thrice a week. The gym evenings are intensive, however, and my personal trainer, who goes by the curious name of Jamie Evill, is a fantastic motivator and trainer. I am completely under his charisma, and so far, he and I have been doing great things at each of my sessions. With my own resolution to walk more, a little better control of my diet, better medicines for my diabetes, and the training at the gym, I have lost 4.5 kg since I came to the UK on the 14th of November 2015. Cheers to that!

Clinical work begins ...

I took my second dose of the MMR vaccine and the first Chickenpox vaccine on the 15th of December. With this, I became eligible to join the wards to see patients and handle them in other care areas as well. This means a lot to me, since clinical experience is what I am looking for. Now that I am eligible to see patients, I was posted to the out-patient clinics on the 16th, i.e. today. I was quite worried, since I have no previous experience of working with patients in the NHS, and do not know exactly what protocols are to be followed, which forms need to be filled, and so on. However, it turned out far less complex than I had thought it to be. The presence of my consultant colleagues helped me to check with any issues that I felt needed to be addressed. Both of them, Dr. Raj Verma in the morning session, and Dr. Rabin Mohanty in the afternoon session, were extremely understanding and cooperative and helped me through all the difficulties. 

In addition to the clinics, I was in the hand-over sessions both in the morning and in the afternoon. This helped me to understand the patients as they are in the wards and in the Neonatal Unit. In some days, I guess, I would be seeing ward or newborn patients as well, so I should brush up on my day-to-day clinical knowledge. 

Which brings me to my studies ... well, this is not the study studies that formed a part of my life when I was in Saudi Arabia. These are studies that I can do at my own pace, for my own professional development. There are literally hundreds of things happening around someone who looks to take up studying in any form. I have begun walking on this path, and have already taken part in several activities, such as attending a leadership course, presenting a case in a meeting, and so on.

In other news, I have got used to the cold weather here, and am comfortable with the temperature hovering around 6-8 C as well as I was, in India, with a temperature of 18C. The other news is that I have begun to workout at the gym under the guidance of a personal trainer, who has reduced his charges to a level where I can feel easy enough to pay him. In the process, my exercising has increased, I feel sore in many muscles each evening after my return from the gym, and I have begun to lose weight. It isn't something really big - the weight loss, I mean - but it's a start, and I hope to go on with this until I am at a comfortable 75 kg or less ... even if that takes a year. In tandem with my exercising, I have also reduced my intake of carbs and have increased that of proteins and fat. This, the current recommendations say, will help not only to lose weight more scientifically, but also control that deadly disease that I have - diabetes, Type 2. 

And with that, I sign off today's entry. I hope you liked it. I would appreciate if you signed up to receive updates on your email whenever I wrote a new entry in this blog. Thanks once again, and BYE.