Embracing Autumn Challenges and Self-Care

What sort of challenges do I face in the autumn months and how do I handle them? So during the autumn months I don't have as much opportunity for outdoor activities as I want. I still go for a walk but the picnics and the tennis in the park and things like that become a little bit more difficult but the walks still carry on. The days become gradually shorter and shorter, obviously, so that affects things in a different way. In terms of diet, I try and keep up my diet as part of my lifestyle changes. However, in the autumn months we have various seasons. You've got Diwali, for example, which I do like to celebrate a a lot. We're coming over to the Christmas period as well, obviously. Well, during these festivity seasons, I do tend to indulge too much, to be honest with you, with high sugar content, high carbohydrates, things like that, and my diet goes out of the window. I'm one of those individuals that tries to get back on track, though, through peer group support. So I keep up my lifestyle changes and the promises that I've made to myself in the autumn months it's not as easy as in the summer months but I try my very best. Perfect, brilliant. Are there any particular things that a healthcare professional can do for you to make you feel better or prepared for the autumn and coming winter? Is there anything that a healthcare professional can do to help me for the autumn and onset of winter. Yet I think so, they could remind me of the promises that I've made to myself because I believe I should, everybody should own their own healthcare. I think we should take responsibility for ourselves. The healthcare professionals should be there to kind of point it out, remind you, but not necessarily on a daily basis monitor what you're doing. So yes, I think they could help me in the sense of reminding me about the promises that I've made to myself and then to adhere and just to make themselves available if I have any special questions to answer. But really, I like to take care of my own health and I will manage it for myself. Brilliant. Are you making any particular preparations during this autumn for the upcoming winter months with regards to your health and perhaps you can share with us some of these things that you are doing. Well, am I doing anything for this particular autumn that's coming up? Well, yes, because my son gets married and we're due to have a destination wedding abroad. Well, there's all kinds of challenges with health, health challenges with exercise, with diet and things like that abroad. So we should be somewhere near a beach and I'm looking forward to nice long walks in the evenings when the wedding isn't going on. I'm looking forward to enjoying the warm weather abroad during this autumn. And I'm now beginning to think about some of the... and how am I going to keep up my diet abroad? I'm beginning to think about that, and I'm also beginning to think about my clothes and footwear and long walks along the beach and things like that. So I'm beginning to prepare, beginning to think about the preparation at least for this coming autumn. Brilliant. Congratulations for your son's coming wedding. Number four, if you were trying to motivate others with health conditions like diabetes and weight management to be be more able to self-care for their needs, what would you say to them? Look, what would I say to others to motivate them to take on self-care and responsibility for their own health needs? Look, the GPs do their very best, but if you get, I don't know, 10 minutes with your GP once in a while, you're lucky. There are other healthcare professionals who are also extremely busy. So why leave your health needs, your health care into the arms of somebody that hasn't got sufficient time to kind of look after it? You've got to take responsibility for your own health. Now if you're like me and find it difficult to be very disciplined about regular exercise, about regular diet. If you find it difficult then I would recommend why not buddy up with somebody that you care for, somebody you respect and this peer group support that you receive from your body will help you to stay on track. So my advice is please go get the knowledge and the education about your health needs. Apply the lifestyle changes that you're going to promise to yourself to meet your own goals and then buddy up with somebody that you meet on a regular basis once a week at least and use their peer group support back to you to remain on track. Take it seriously, hey. Come on, your health is wealth. Take it seriously and take ownership of your own health. Brilliant, thank you very much. Number five, the final one in this section. What do you feel an online community can do to help you and others? What can an online community do to help me and others? Look, I get inspired by listening to other people's stories. If somebody in a similar circumstance to me has found a way to keep up their lifestyle change promises they've made to themselves, then I'd like to know about them. If they've found some special diets, some special ways of making sure that, you know, you can eat sustainably without feeling hungry, well I want to know about the hints and tips and tricks and so on. I get inspired by listening to others. What can an online community do? It'll be nice if various hints and tips were shared online other people's stories, other people's experiences and I would love to kind of listen to those and take some of that on board. Also, if in an online community it's possible to post a question, something that I've been pondering upon and can't quite figure out and then receive responses, I think that's a real value add. So I think an online community can help but it's It's got to be personalised, I want to receive information that's relevant to me, to my circumstance. So that's what an online community could do to help me.