The 3 Things We Need To UNLEARN To Exercise Safely & Successfully (When Living With Autoimmune Disease)
For people living with any kind of autoimmune disease, one of the side effects they experience is exhaustion, chronic fatigue and a lack of energy.
When you are exhausted all the time, it feels like everything in life is 50% harder. Just getting through the day is a chore. Nights and weekends become less about being social and more about being too tired to do anything else but rest. We feel disconnected to the people in our lives, even our most loved ones. It becomes difficult to go out into the world, even just to run errands, nevermind having a social life. And when we do spend time out with friends, family and loved ones, often we come home even more spent, even more exhausted, because we have so few energy reserves in our tank.
I know this from personal experience. There have been times in my life where this was me. I would come home from a long day of work and be so exhausted, so completely wiped out, that I was cranky and short with my family. My husband and little kids would be so excited to see me, and all I wanted to do is go lie down.
I realized how awful this was- I had so little energy in my energy bank account and I was spending all my energy resources at work. I had nothing left to give the people I loved and who I was excited to see. It felt so very wrong.
In my opinion, energy is the most important element of life. Without energy, we don’t feel like ourselves. We feel like a shell of ourselves. It’s hard to spend time with the people that we love, laughing and enjoying life, when you are counting the minutes until you can get into bed.
Now, we know that for people living with autoimmune disease, exercise can help reduce exhaustion.
But in order to get this benefit of exercise, this awesome side effect, we have to unlearn everything we used to know about exercise and begin again- moving our bodies in a way that prioritizes energy production.
Here is a list of the three things we need to unlearn most… and the three ways we can make changes to prioritize energy production, so we can use exercise to feel happier, feel better in our bodies, and feel more like ourselves again.
We need to shed our old reasons for wanting to exercise. The fitness industry knows exactly what to do to prey on our insecurities. Making us worry about how we look or how much we weigh creates a feeling of pressure and anxiety- which leads us to exercise harder and faster, with a feeling of urgency.
When that makes us feel worse rather than better, we then feel shame and put the blame on ourselves, feeling like we did something wrong, like we failed. This shame cycle isn’t good for us emotionally or physically, and we don’t get the results we want.
Instead of listening to these outside voices for our motivation to exercise, we need to look inward instead. What kind of life do we really want to have? How do we need to feel in order to live that life? What do we want from our bodies? My guess is that your answer will be that you want more energy, so you can do all the things in your life that need doing. You want more mobility and endurance, so you can be physically capable of handling all the things your life has to offer.
In order to get these kind of results, slow and steady wins the race. A little bit of exercise, consistently, over time, will help you build energy, endurance and mobility without wiping yourself out or making you feel badly about yourself.
We need to adjust our expectations when it comes to exercise and exercise results. Again, the fitness industry has done us a disservice here. We have been led to believe that we can get 6 pack abs in 30 days. That results can happen quickly. And that if we don’t get these results, that we have done something wrong or failed somehow.
The reality is that results don’t come so quickly. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but I’d be lying. It takes time and consistency, showing up again and again, in order to get results. And if we adjust our expectations accordingly, we will be much less disappointed and ready to give up when we don’t see the results we anticipated quickly.
We need to understand that results will come. We just have to know where to look. The fitness industry has created such a narrow definition of what “results” look like- and that usually pertains to body shape and the number on the scale. Now, these kind of results aren’t bad- and for some people they are very important goals. However, they don’t have to be the only results we look for. In fact, when you exercise consistently, a little bit at a time and manage your energy levels appropriately, these kind of results will be happy side effects. But they aren’t the only kind of results we look for.
Autoimmune Strong members have shared so many different kinds of results that we don’t even think of as results. Here are just a few.
“My posture has improved. My body feels “taller”. I can feel it, and my husband has noticed it too.”
“Walking uphill while walking the dogs is getting easier and I am not longer huffing and puffing.”
“I had a busy day and I was certain it would cause a flare, but it didn’t. I can handle these busy days much better than before.”
“I had a little bit LESS PAIN than when walking before starting the program. A LITTLE BIT LESS PAIN. That is a huge win for me.”
“I know what to do to take care of my body now. For example, I came home with shoulder pain the other day. I knew which exercises to do. I did them, and the shoulder pain went away. Poof! I feel more confident that the pain is not permanent.”
“We were invited to a party. When I was at my worst, I could not handle more than one or two hours standing at a party. Now, I realized - the day after - that I had been standing for more than four hours - without even noticing.”
When we change our perspective on exercise, everything in our life can shift. Just a little bit a day can go a long way. Autoimmune Strong can show you how. Give Autoimmune Strong a try and see if it’s right for you. To learn more and sign up here for your Autoimmune Strong membership and get the first 7 days for FREE. Start your free trial today!