How To Find The Motivation to Exercise When You Live In Pain

Let’s talk about “motivation”. 

One of the things I hear often is “I want to exercise, and I have the best intention to exercise, but I just can’t find the motivation.” 

You see, the idea of “motivation” puts the responsibility on you. It puts a value judgement on you- you are “good” if you have motivation and “bad” if you don’t. So when we wake up and have no motivation to exercise, we criticize ourselves, and our inner monologue becomes very negative. 

I want to release you from this cycle of negativity and help you to reframe the way we think about “motivation”. 

There are many reasons that we lack motivation for exercise.

Our bodies are in pain, and the idea of exercise feels scary and overwhelming because we fear that exercise will actually cause more pain than we are already experiencing. For many, this fear is rooted in real life experiences, where this has actually happened in the past, where an exercise experience has triggered intense pain and flare up, so we are intensely nervous to try again. The lack of motivation happens when the brain says “We need to do this” and the body rebels, as an instinctive protective measure. The body is actually creating resistance (in the form of a lack of motivation) in order to protect you from harm. 

We may also be experiencing a lack of motivation to exercise because the chosen form of exercise is not the right fit. Certain forms of exercise are more likely to trigger exhaustion, pain and flare symptoms than others. Cardio- like running, swimming and even walking- can be really overwhelming for the system. HIIT exercises, popular in many online exercise programs, also can be too intense for the body's needs, triggering exhaustion, pain and flare symptoms. An hour long class might be too long and too hard for where your body is now. Picking an exercise that is too much for your body to handle will make you not able to stick to the habit consistently over the long term. 

And finally, we might be experiencing a lack of motivation to exercise because our body is already too drained from excess stress, exhaustion, flare symptoms. All of these internal and external stressors wear on the body, leaving us with limited leftover energy for exercise. (You can read more about it here) Our body knows that we have nothing left in the tank, and that any further depletion of energy would be dangerous, so it triggers a feeling of “no motivation” to protect you. 

You see, none of this is your fault. Your body simply needs time to recover, and recoup this feeling of energy, zest for life, and desire to motivate and exercise. Here are my tips on how to do that. 

1. Release yourself from the inner critic who blames you for not having the motivation to exercise. Give yourself permission to feel the resistance when it bubbles up, and ask yourself, what is this resistance trying to tell me? Exploring where this “lack of motivation” is coming from will give you deep insights into your body. 

2. Try moving your body in a gentle way. We need to pick exercises that give our body relief, where we can say “Ok, I can do this, no big deal.” If it feels like you aren’t really exercising? Then good! That means you can do it without triggering that fear and resistance! 

Do a little ab bracing, stretching or foam rolling, some balance practice, or simple ankle exercises. These exercises are gentle ways to dip your toes into movement that doesn’t trigger a flare. (Don’t know what these exercises are? Don’t worry, I can teach you!)

As you get accustomed to a little bit of exercise, you can slowly introduce more and more into your life. Your body will adapt over time, and will learn to desire the movements as a part of feeling good. The more you practice, the more normal it becomes, and motivation will then come naturally, and will be an organic and seamless part of your life. 

3. Acknowledge and trust that this is not a quick process. Through sales techniques like “6 Pack Abs in Weeks” our minds have been conditioned by the fitness industry to expect quick transformations. This is problematic, because when we don’t achieve these transformations, or have a lack of motivation in our journey to achieve these transformations, we get stuck in a cycle of negativity. It feels like it’s our fault for “failing”. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not us who have failed- instead, the expectations set by these promises have failed us. So we need to set different expectations, and break the journey down into bite-sized pieces to be able to get stronger without crushing ourselves. A little bit of simple exercise each day can make all the difference. 

4. Don’t go it alone. If you are feeling overwhelmed, not motivated, and resistant to exercise- don’t get lost in the cycle of negativity. Instead, reach out for help. I am here for you!

Autoimmune Strong is an exercise program designed to encourage these principles. So, if you are unsure on how to apply these principles to your life, come join us and we’ll show you how! Learn more by clicking here.

The Four Factors You Need To Consider When Exercising With Autoimmune Disease

Finding the right type of exercise for your body is a nuanced and evolving process as we heal our autoimmune disease. As previously discussed exercise is a stressor on our bodies that we must manage alongside other physical and emotional stressors, including our chronic illness. 

People living with autoimmune disease need to approach exercise differently than “the standard american way”. We can not approach exercise with a “no pain no gain” mindset. Our mindset has to be flipped on its head: if there is pain, there is no gain. 

If we push our body past its limits we can experience an exercise induced symptom flare and the exercise progress and strength we built may be set back as we heal. These types of flares may not manifest directly after exercise so we must pay special attention and track activities, stressors and symptoms to determine the cause of a flare.

So how do we find the right exercise when facing exercise intolerance leading to symptom flare ups? As with many things in our healing journeys this is not one size fits all. There are four main factors to consider when approaching exercise:

1. Intensity

2. Duration

3. Frequency

4. Type

1. FREQUENCY
This refers to how often you exercise. Exercise doesn’t work when you do it sporadically, or if you do a lot of it in a one week period and then stop. 

In order to reap the optimal benefits of exercise, you must exercise consistently over time. Ideally, this should look like daily exercise with rest days incorporated- but if this is too much, in the beginning, you can work up to it. The most important thing is to be consistent, so if that means that you exercise one day and then take two days of rest, then you need to make sure you get back to exercise and repeat.

2. DURATION
This refers to how long each exercise session should be. If you are consistent with your exercise, it doesn’t need to be that long. Frequency is more important than duration when it comes to managing autoimmune symptoms, and exercising without flare-up. A lengthy workout session has more of a chance of overstimulating cortisol, so keeping it short is best. However, how you define short depends on your level of fitness. If you are someone who is newly diagnosed, or new to a fitness regiment, short should mean 10 to 15 minutes per session at the most. And many people need to start with even less, at 1 to 5 minutes. Remember- everyone needs to start somewhere. You need to start with what works for your body. 

3. INTENSITY
This refers to how hard your workout is for you. This means how much you push your body, how heavy your weights are, how far you run, how sweaty you get, how fast your heart beats, and how quickly you get out of breathe. 

Typically, when we think of exercise, we think we want it to be intense. But this does not hold true for people with autoimmune disease. Generally, the rule of thumb is that people living with autoimmune disease should keep the intensity low to moderate, especially when starting out. Exercise should not exhaust or deplete you- you should have enough gas left in the tank to be able to still get through your day. 

The right kind of exercise is one that is progressive, and builds in intensity just a little bit, slowly, over a long period of time. This slow building process of intensity helps our body adapt to the challenge without freaking out and shutting down with a flare-up. 

4. TYPE
This refers to the style of exercise. Generally, any style of exercise can be adapted to follow the rules listed above. However, a note of caution: exercises that really ramp up cortisol, such as HIIT training, spin class, and Crossfit WODs, as well as any kind of cardio such as running or elliptical should be done with extreme caution. These types of activities are significantly more likely to stimulate an exercise-induced flare-up.

We know autoimmune disease symptoms improve with exercise so with these factors in mind the approach to exercise, while different for every person, starts slowly. My recommended approach to use gentle strength training combined with flexibility and mobility training. Start with low-intensity and low duration and after a few successful weeks of consistency without flare-up, you can build intensity and duration over time. Cardio, such as walking, can use this same approach for building to a level you are comfortable with while staying healthy.

The Autoimmune Strong exercise program is built around these four factors- and is designed to help you exercise in a safe and effective way, without flare-up. So, if you are ready to start exercising in a way that works best for your body, but don’t know where to start, check out the Autoimmune Strong website

The Goldilocks Principle

Facebook Live February 11, 2019

In this video Andrea teaches you all about finding that sweet spot of exercising in a way that feels good and doesn't cause a flare-up. This means slowing down your exercise ambitions and working smarter not harder to achieve real long-term results. Hear about her recent experience and challenge in the gym- stopping, even though she felt great! There is no one size fits all approach- and in this video, Andrea teaches you how to tune in and listen to what your body really needs. Here you will learn about the Autoimmune Strong “rule of one quarter” to find your baseline to begin your exercise plan safely and effectively. Andrea will help guide you to understand how you can meet yourself where you are and build on a solid foundation. Five seconds of the right exercise is better than five minutes of the wrong exercise that will lead to a flare up.