FUTURO review and my personal health toolkit.

FUTURO review and my personal health toolkit.

When you become a mum you sacrifice, you give, and you do everything in your power to raise healthy, happy and protected children. 

And then you get a bit older and things start to weaken or show wear and tear or maybe even illness or disease strikes and you realise how little effort you may have been putting into looking after YOU as well. 

Now when you have medical issues I think you can either become a sufferer or a doer, just like the glass half full scenario. I have decided to be a doer and find the best ways to help me and my body, as it is after all my only body, to better cope with life and live a long, healthy, happy one.

While I am only 35 I come from a family with (amongst other things) lots of Osteoarthritis and I myself have also been told I have Ankylosing Spondylitis and scoliosis so my joints and back can be very painful and does need extra tender loving care.

And you know what? These days I am doing pretty darn good. Yes, there is pain, and discomfort but I feel like I have an awesome toolkit at my disposal helping me now! 

Yep, a toolkit! 

Just like you might have for your house or your car.  A toolkit of things that help you, aid you, make a real difference to your quality of life. What is in mine?? 

*EXERCISE. My Rheumatologist told me exercise is even more important for me than the average 35 year old as it will actually help my body to cope better, things like squats and lunges (yikes, I don’t think I will ever like them) help strengthen my muscles and take the pressure off my joints so I am doing sets of exercises every day. I am also back into walking and about to get into a Pilates or yoga class. 
*POSTURE, MASSAGE and PHYSIO TREATMENTS. With my physio I am practising better posture. 
*PLANT BASED ANTI INFLAMMATORY EATING. With my diet I am eating a plant based, clean diet full of green smoothies, fresh juices, soups, salads, fruit platters, raw desserts and (because I can’t help myself – chocolate, my old friend, though, in my defence, mostly refined sugar free chocolate ). It is very much simple foods that I am eating and lots of leafy greens and foods as close to natural as possible – and it is working! My inflammation levels on blood tests have plummeted and I lost 15 kilos! 
*ALKALINE WATER. With my new water filter jug, that I LOVE I have been drinking alkaline water every day, as have my kids! 
*HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS. With my naturopath I am taking silica, turmeric, fish oil, high vitamin c, zinc, pro biotics, glutamin and a herbal mixture. 
*FUTURO SUPPORT. And for my body I am now trying out 
Futuro Custom Dial Stabilising Supports 

I am using these cool innovations, especially when I am doing repetitive work which normally gives me lots of pain. I have to be honest, at first I wasn't so sure they would help as I have tried plenty of creams, braces and things in the past but I did actually feel a difference the first day I was wearing them, especially the wrist ones. These braces by Futuro are specially engineered to give protection and comfort and most of all firm reliable support to weakened or injured areas like wrists, elbows and knees. The supports feature Boa Technology Inc. ‘click to fit’ dials, so they are adjustable throughout the day with the simple twist of a dial, providing the level of support needed by you and giving you control over how it works for you.  

AND my girls thought I looked like Iron Man – so it was the added bonus of instant cool mummy cred too! 

Futuro wrist braces – giving mums pain relief , support AND instant Iron Man coolness!! 

One thing I have absolutely learnt in the last few years is that pain robs your life of JOY. It is a happiness thief, it makes you short tempered, grumpy, dismissive and stops you enjoying each and every moment with your children. 

I also learnt that prescription pain relief doesn’t really help with joint, back and neck pain either. It just takes the edge off and makes you feel vague and tired, plus it puts so much extra stress on your liver and kidneys! And it doesn’t address the problem of why the pain is there either. 

What I now know is it is having a toolkit at our disposal; a balanced, chemical free toolkit, like a great physio, herbal supplements, exercises and tools like these Futuro Custom Dial supports can give us our joy back. 

It can make living in our body much more comfortable so we can get back to the more important things in life like bug hunting in the garden with 4 year olds and braiding 9 year old hair to look like Elsa. 

If I can share any wisdom with fellow mums it is get yourself a great tool kit and support system for your body and your health, it makes a world of difference and you need to take care of yourself because while your kids are your world, you are theirs. 

This is some of my personal toolkit this year – giving me my JOY back.

Bek xoxox 

This is a sponsored blog post as I was paid to review the Futuro Custom Dial supports. 

All opinions are my own and I do very much believe in my "toolkit" and only endorse products I believe in.

If you suffer from joint pain, or have someone you love that does pop over and have at their full product range HERE for medication free support options available out there. After all our bodies have to cope with so many chemicals and things already, anything natural that helps is a really good thing!


Please note the information in this post is based on the author, Bek's own personal experiences and does not in any way give out medical information or replace a consultation with your health care professional, it is for your reading pleasure only. Please always seek and follow expert advice for any and all health concerns you may have before undertaking any kind of treatment, natural or otherwise.

WATER. Hydration for Health & Happiness and a water filter review

WATER
Beautiful, life sustaining water.
I think in modern times, and even especially now that healthy eating has become so very in, we often forget the simple things and one of the most important ingredients of all for a healthy, happy life, WATER...

Up to 60% of the human body is water, every cell in our body uses water. We need water to function, to live and yet so many people don't drink enough water! And don't worry for many years that was me too...
More and more studies have been done that show dehydration to be found in almost every known disease to mankind and it also makes almost every illness's symptoms worse.
Think about it, when something is seriously wrong what do they do in hospital? Put you on a drip! Because they know how important proper hydration is.
Last year I read an incredible book on this very subject coming from decades of medical research called, "Your not sick, your dehydrated."

Wow, what an amazing book and eye opening read.

It wasn't long after reading it and being inspired to include much more water into my day that I began to really notice and worry about the chemicals and toxins found in tap water.
I can totally understand why they are in there. Council's have to make sure no moulds, bacteria or anything harmful gets into people's drinking water, no easy feat when it usually comes from lakes and dams I can imagine.
BUT, if I am making all this healthy, chemical free, beautiful food and trying really hard to have a chemical free house then surely these chemicals are counterproductive?

It was right when I was thinking this over and wondering also at the state of the inside also of my rainwater tank which the owner told em he wasn't sure had been ever cleaned (eek, I know right) that I was contacted about reviewing an amazing, high tech, extremely efficient (and complicated)  in home water filtration system that conveniently is all inside a handy jug!

It is just the perfect size for a family, would fit into any household and is portable so also very convenient for anyone who is renting.
And while the process it undertakes to clean and energise the water is highly complex, you don't have to do much of anything! (Perfect for a busy mum like me) who has little time for more complicated things in life.

It is even designed into an attractive jug that would not clash with any kitchen decor either for that matter.
Which funnily enough has always been of great importance to me and my kitchen purchases ;)

I also LOVE that the company you buy it from is created by Joanne Musgrave, a certified health coach who uses her own training along with naturopath Julie McNab to offer a range on her website that you know has been really well researched, not just the ingredients but the company itself too and their ethics. What is there is beautiful products and you know you can trust what you find at Shop Naturally.

Now this means a lot to me, and I really place a lot of value in businesses that take their products and their word on said products seriously. This makes my life so much easier as a shopper and busy mum and also gives me great respect and admiration for their integrity and passion.
I am just delighted to say that Shop Naturally is one such business.

I don't have hours and hours of spare time to research everything, I just don't so when I can trust a beautiful business that makes my life and shopping experiences so much better.
On the Sunshine Coast I have this trust with the Jeffers Market stores where I know Stephen Jeffers would not stock anything he had not extensively researched and now I have it online at Shop Naturally now I have discovered them too.

The water jug I reviewed and fell in love with is called

Waters Co Bio Mineral Pot Ace 1.5L Water Filter Jug
Check out out here 

It is 1.5 litre, adds minerals back into your water, has a nine stage filtration system, alkalines the water and filters out chlorine and fluoride.

" The 9 filtration stages are: prefilter, activated carbon filter medium, ion exchange resin, bio organic alkaline minerals, organic germanium, far infrared and magnets. They filter out chlorine, heavy metals, fluoride, nitrate, odours, sediment, bacteria, cysts & viruses. At the same time, the filtration system adds around 60 bio organic trace minerals & restructures the water molecules to significantly increase cellular hydration, adding 'Ki' (Life energy)." Website quote. 

It even comes with a PH testing kit, something as a horticulturalist I was very impressed with and interested in.
I have long since suspected the Sunshine Coast water to be acidic and I found out I was right and considering research also sais that cancer can only live in an acid environment I think we all want to improve our bodies PH to be more alkaline and one of the easiest ways to do this is drinking alkaline water everyday.

Improving your hydration and becoming alkaline improves your skin, eyes, hair, weight, mood, bowel movements and is said to be powerful healing for everyone and especially people with auto immune diseases, arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Reactive Arthritis, asthma, chrons, eczema etc etc

Drinking more water always sounds simple but in reality so often ends up being a bit slap dash!!
I find this jug not only gives me better tasting water that is so much better for me and my family but it also keeps me accountable too as I know just how many times I should be refilling it and drinking from it for me and my two gorgeous girls everyday!

Thank you goes to Shop Naturally for this review and for introducing me to an easy way to beautiful, clean, alkaline healing water for me and my children.

Eat Beautiful, Be Active, Live Well, Find Calm AND stay hydrated!

LOVE Bek XX