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Day 30: Celebrate!

You did it! You finished the cardio party!!!! 

I am so proud of you! But more importantly, I hope you are super proud of yourself! 

So, on our last day, please share with me- what did you think of the cardio party? Did you learn how to think about cardio in a new way? I hope so, that was my goal! Please share your thoughts with me here.

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Day 29: The core!

It’s our last strength day, so let’s end with my favorite- the core! 

Practice the following ab bracing moves:

Beginner: (New to AIS or in Level 1):

Intermediate: (In Level 2 or 3): 

Advanced: In Level 4, 5 or 6

And don’t forget to practice your check-ins and breathing work before you begin. 

Tell me- how does your core feel now as you go through these exercise routines? Do things feel stronger? Do basic activities like standing and walking feel any different or easier?

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Day 28: Cardio!

Ok, we have practiced our cardio a few times now. So let’s reflect on what we have learned. 

Have you increased, decreased, or stayed the same with your cardio? 

The goal is to always check in with your body first as we have always been doing. By now, you should be quite accustomed to this routine. 

But now, I want you to reflect on the choices you have made. 

Are you always increasing? 

Are you always decreasing? 

Are you always staying the same? 

I want you to experiment with trying something different today. If you are always increasing, I want you to experiment with doing the same amount as the last time, or less. If you have stayed the same up until now, I want you to experiment with adding a few extra steps to your day. And if you have decreased beforehand- perhaps try doing the same as last time.

Remember to follow this layout:

Check-ins 
Breaths
Warm-Up
Cardio
Cool Down 

Make sure you hydrate afterwards- and throughout the whole day and day after that. 

And then tell me: What did you choose to do today? How did you feel? Did you learn something about yourself?

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Day 27: Rest Day

It’s more cardio time!

But before we jump into it today, we first need to evaluate how the last cardio session went. Did it feel like too little, too much, or just right? 

We are almost at the end and this is your last rest day of the program! 

On this rest day, I wanted to re-visit the topic of foam rolling and stretching. 

When we do foam rolling and stretching as a warm up and a cool down activity, we do it briefly. I have instructed you to do it this way for a reason. It warms up your body, loosens up the muscles, and helps them relax and recover after a workout. 

However, we do get some pretty intense knots in our body, which this brief surface foam rolling doesn’t quite attend to. So, a rest day can also be used for a deeper foam rolling experience. On a rest day, feel free to foam roll and spend a little extra time on those knotty places- perhaps you will get some extra deep release! 

You can watch the lower body foam rolling video here. 

You can watch the upper body foam rolling video here.

Tell me: How does the deeper foam rolling experience feel to you? Do you have a lot of knots?

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Day 26: Strength Day!

Hopefully by now you have gotten into the swing of things. It’s a pretty simple rotation: cardio day, strength day and rest day. 

Now, the rotation of what you do on a strength day is important too. The whole body needs attention, but not all at once, so we must rotate through over the course of time to cover each area. You may have noticed that we are rotating through the four areas over the course of these 30 Days- Core, Foot/Ankle, Hips & Glutes and Spine Shoulder & Neck. This is to make sure we cover all the areas of the body in equal parts. 

Today we return to the spine neck and shoulder! 

Here we go!

Beginner: Watch and practice video 5 spine neck and shoulder

Intermediate: 

Advanced: 

Don’t forget to check in with yourself, breathe and drink water too.

Tell me: How does your upper body feel after you do these exercises?

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Day 25 More Cardio!

Let’s keep going! 

As you now know, the first thing you need to do on cardio days is check in with yourself first. 

If you aren’t having any health issues and no other stressors in your week, and you felt like last week’s cardio was too little, you can add 50-100 steps to what you did before. 

If you are feeling a little tired but nothing really big and have no other big stressors happening right now, I recommend keeping it the same amount of steps as last time. 

If you are feeling like it’s all too much? Cut what you did last time in half and do that. Or take an additional rest and recovery day. 

Remember to follow this layout:

Check-ins 
Breaths
Warm-Up
Cardio
Cool Down 

And then tell me: What did you choose to do today? Increase, stay the same, or decrease? Why? And how did it feel?

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Day 24: Rest & Recovery!

On this rest day, let’s go back to hydration. 

Did you know that your body is approximately 65% water? We need water not just to survive, but to thrive. 

Did you know that the majority of Americans suffer from chronic dehydration? I say chronic because it means we haven’t been drinking enough water for a looooong time. And water is critical to our health. 

Water regulates your body temperature and lubricates your joints.

It helps to create healthy blood flow to transport nutrients to give you energy and keep you healthy. 

It also helps your body flush out toxins. 

Being well hydrated helps reduce brain fog, gives you better sleep, and can reduce your chances of flares. If you're not hydrated, your body can't perform at its highest level.

And here’s the thing- most of us have been dehydrated for years! So it’s going to take some time and focus to get our bodies accustomed to water again. 

How are you doing with the process I laid out in the earlier post? Are you still focusing on water? Or has it fallen by the wayside? 

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Day 23: Foot, Ankle and Balance

We wear shoes all day, especially when we walk and run. We usually wear sneakers, which are typically very structured with a big sole that keeps our foot from touching the ground. So, in order to keep our foot and ankle health strong, we have to practice without shoes so that our feet do what they are supposed to do when we are in shoes. 

So, let’s practice our foot work. 

Beginner: Watch video 3 foot and ankle

Intermediate: Level 2 Workout Video #1

Advanced: Level 4 Workout Video #1

Tell me: How is your balance?  Is it improving?

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Day 22 More Cardio!

It’s more cardio time!

But before we jump into it today, we first need to evaluate how the last cardio session went. Did it feel like too little, too much, or just right? 

Let’s evaluate.

If you having any health issues and no other stressors in your week and you felt like last week’s cardio was too little, you can add 50-100 steps to what you did before. 

If you are feeling a little tired but nothing really big and have no other big stressors happening right now, I recommend keeping it the same amount of steps as last time. 

And if you are feeling like it’s all too much? Cut what you did last time in half and do that. Or take an additional rest and recovery day. 

Remember to follow this layout: 

Check-ins 
Breaths
Warm-Up
Cardio
Cool Down 

Make sure you hydrate afterwards- and throughout the whole day and day after that. 

And then tell me: What did you choose to do today? Increase, stay the same, or decrease? Why? And how did it feel?

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Day 21: Recovery Day!!!

Now that we have done our first cardio, let’s talk about the general schedule we are going to follow here. 

Typically, I recommend that you alternate your days as follows: 

Cardio

Strength Day

Rest Day (which can include just rest & recovery, or for the intermediate and advanced members, can include some gentle ab bracing, foam rolling, foot/ankle or stretching)

Now, something to think about. Your exercise routine does not exist in a vacuum. You have to always take into consideration the other things going on in your life. Sometimes we need an extra rest day- but how do we know?

Here are some of the things we need to consider when deciding whether or not to take an extra rest day.

Your health: how are you feeling? Are you feeling any warning signs of a flare? Exhaustion? Brain fog? Body aches or soreness? General malaise? Overwhelm? GI issues? If you are experiencing any of these symptoms or feeling under the weather or having a flare-up of any kind, you can take an extra rest day as needed. Now, I saw this with a caveat- which is that I often find that doing gentle exercise such as gentle ab bracing, foam rolling, foot/ankle or stretching can actually reduce the feeling of being sick- but I leave that up to you to experiment with. I do not encourage you to push forward with anything new or challenging if you are having any of these issues. 

Your “busy-ness”: Have you been super busy with housework, errands, and other non-exercise personal life things? We need rest and recovery days from that too. 

Jenessa shared this on the facebook page and I think it covers this topic nicely: 

Yesterday (day 7) was the kind of day I used to think of as a rest day, back when I started AIS:  a day when I didn’t do AIS exercises because I needed to do too many other physical things that day. I’ve realized that that isn’t really a rest day, since I’m not resting, I’m just busy! So today I’m going to take a real rest day.

A rest day is not a recovery day simply because you are not doing your exercises. It actually needs to be a day when you slow down and give your body time to recover. 

Special events: Often, there is something big going on in our week. It might be something difficult, or it might be something fun! If there is something different about the week, like a birthday event or a work deadline or a trip of some kind- I do not recommend pushing forward, and I encourage you to take extra rest days until the big thing passes. Any event can cause stress- even happy ones! And so we want to manage your stress levels and keep the demands on your body in check until this event passes. 

Hopefully this helps give you extra insight into when and why we need extra rest days, and how to make that decision for yourself.

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What do you think of these special considerations? Do you take actual rest days? Or are they simply just busy days?

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Day 20: Post Cardio Hips & Glutes Maintenance

Let’s stretch our bodies after yesterday. The hips can get really tight after cardio- despite all of our stretching before and after. Flexibility is really important when we are doing cardio. 

So why are we talking about flexibility on a strength day? Well- when we commonly think of flexibility, we think of stretching as the way to get it. And that isn’t wrong, stretching definitely helps. But strength building also helps to create flexibility. The stretching and strength building have to go hand in hand. 

So here we go! 

Beginner: Watch and practice the hip and glutes video from Level 1

Intermediate: 

Advanced: 

These stretches and exercises are essential in the toolbox of cardio prep, because they strengthen and stretch all the leg muscles, making them stronger, more flexible and more mobile.

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How do these exercises all feel to you? Did they feel restorative after the day of cardio? Or did it feel like too much?

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Day 19: It’s Cardio Time!

Before you go though, make sure to check in with yourself and practice your breathing. 

Then, make sure you do your warm-up and cool down.

Here is the warm-up protocol:

Then get on your shoes and do some CARDIO!

When you are done, follow this cool down protocol.

Beginner:

  • Practice your foam rolling by watching the foam rolling video here. Don’t focus on the knots, just do a quick foam roll over the areas of your body.

Intermediate: 

  • Practice foam rolling lower body. Don’t focus on the knots, just do a quick foam roll over the areas of your body.

  • Next, stretch out using the basics from the static stretching video

  • Relax with these final poses: 

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

Advanced: 

  • Practice foam rolling upper and lower body

  • Add in your favorite static stretches: I recommend reviewing the basics from Level 1

  • Relax with these final poses: 

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

Once it’s done, let’s reflect together. How did your first day of cardio training go????

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Day 18: Steps Evaluation

Another Rest & Recovery Day! 

Last week we learned about exercise tolerance, intolerance and finding your baseline. And over the last week, you have been tracking your basic day to day steps. Today, we are going to start the process of figuring out what your baseline is and where to begin. 

Tomorrow will be our first day of cardio. You have been doing a fantastic job tracking your steps- and today I am finally going to show you what to do with it.

Let’s talk about cardio training. There are many different ways to do cardio. Walking, biking, swimming, hiking, running, dancing, even HIIT exercises or water aerobics. I like to start with walking, because it’s the easiest to measure and from a stress perspective, it has the lowest stress (cortisol) spike, which means it puts us at the least risk for flare. However, if you prefer biking or swimming or something else, you can do that too, and I am happy to help guide you- so just let me know.

First, I want you to gather up all of your daily step tracking that you have been doing and take a look at it. We are going to answer these questions first: 

  • As you look at the steps over time, do you find that you are taking about the same amount of steps each day, or are the big variances in your day to day routine? 

  • If you are taking about the same amount of steps each day, this process will be a little easier to navigate. Your cardio activity will be to add an additional 50 to 100 steps to your day. If you fall into this category, I want you to plan your cardio out for tomorrow. You now know how long it takes you to warm up and cool down. So, carve out the time. When are you going to get your cardio practice in tomorrow? How many steps are you going to do? 50? 100? 150? Pick a goal that feels small- but a little more than you have been doing before. Don’t forget to mark it on your calendar, so you make it happen. 

  • Now, if you are finding that your days vary wildly, pay attention here. The goal for you is to look a little more closely at this wild swing. Why is it swinging so wildly? Are you overdoing it one day and having to rest and recover the next? It’s important to understand this pattern before adding more to it. I recommend here- adding 50 to 100 steps to your cardio on one of your slow days- and also, removing steps from your busy ones. That is going to get you to a place of better stability. 

So, I want you to have a plan of action for tomorrow. Take a minute to write it down somewhere. What is your plan of action for tomorrow’s exercise? I want you to list out exactly when you will do your cardio, and how you will do it. Remember, it should include a warm-up, a little bit of focused cardio (50-150 extra steps if that feels good for you) and a cool down.

My recommended plan of action looks like this:

I will exercise at x:00 time tomorrow.

Before I begin my exercise, I will check-in with myself, practice a few deep breaths, and then proceed to the warm-up. After the warm-up, I will put on my sneakers and go outside and do x amount of steps. When I get home, I will drink x amount of water and do my cooldown routine.

Post on Facebook or share with me! This is your opportunity to ask questions about your plan, get feedback, and get comfortable and confident in your plan for tomorrow.

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Day 17: More Core

I know what you are thinking… this is the cardio party and I seem to be doing a lot of strengthening work- in particular, a lot of core. Why is that? 

Well, one of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to cardio is that they consider cardio to be their exercise and they do only that. 

One of the important things I want you to know about cardio is that in order to be able to do it safely and comfortably and over the long term, we have to alternate between cardio training and strength training. So, that’s what you are going to experience here in this cardio party. 

Our schedule going forward is going to look like this: 

Cardio Day

Strength Day

Rest Day 

Yesterday, we did our beginning cardio day (using our current cardio as the cardio). Today is our strength day. And tomorrow, we rest. 

So… Let’s get strong!

Today’s Core Practice: 

Please continue to: 

Post on Facebook or share with me! How is your core feeling? Stronger? Do you feel a difference yet when doing your regular daily activities?

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Day 16: Warm-Up & Cool Down Practice Together

Before we begin the actual practice of cardio, it’s essential to make sure your body can handle a full warm-up and cool-down routine together. Because when we do cardio, it should look like this: 

Cardio Warm-Up

Cardio Activity

Cardio Cool-Down

So, I want you to pick a time where you are doing your regularly scheduled cardio activity for the day. I don’t want you to add a walk or anything (just yet), but identify something in your everyday life that involves cardio. if you are going to walk the dog, doing the dishes, or running an errand, or walking to your mailbox that counts. 

Before you do that activity today, I want you to warm up. To do so, please follow these warm-up guidelines:

  • Beginner: If you are new to the AIS program and to foam rolling, watch this video and practice. Also, please take note of the modification options as well. This will become your basic warm-up routine.

  • Intermediate:

  • Advanced:

    • I want you to continue to practice your established lower body foam rolling routine.

    • Add Level 4 foam rolling to your practice if you haven’t already.

    • Add in your static stretching by watching this video here. 

    • And finally, end with 2 rounds of dynamic stretching, here.

And after that activity, I want you to cool down by following these cool down practices:  

Beginner:

  • Practice your foam rolling by watching the foam rolling video here

Intermediate: 

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

Advanced: 

  • Practice foam rolling upper and lower body

  • Add in your favorite static stretches: I recommend reviewing the basics from Level 1

  • Relax with these final poses: 

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

(Fyi- You may need more time to plan for this, so no pressure to do this today- you can always do this tomorrow. You aren’t missing anything by waiting)

I want you to pay attention to the following things: 

  1. How did your body feel before, during, and after? 

  2. Did the warm-up and cool-down change anything about the experience of doing that cardio activity (besides making it take more time)? 

  3. How long did your warm-up and cool-down practice take (approximately)? 

  4. Did it feel like doing all three back to back was too much, too little, or just right?

Continue to: 

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Day 15: Rest Day

We are halfway through the 30 Days!

The first 15 days are about getting you familiar with all the concepts and components of a healthy cardio routine. We have covered so many important topics!

We have covered the importance of a deep full breath, to relax the tension in the body. 

We have covered the practice of self check-ins, which help you to begin to notice the body and it’s messages- which creates the habit of body awareness that you need to have while doing cardio. 

You have learned about the importance of a warm-up before doing cardio. You have also practiced your warm-up routine. 

You have also learned about the importance of cooling the body down after cardio. You learned about why this is different from a warm-up, and you have also practiced it. 

You have learned about the essential “rest and recovery day” and you have practiced incorporating it into your week. 

You have learned about the 4 essential areas of the body that are going to help increase your body’s strength, flexibility and mobility, so your body is better prepared to handle the stress and strain of the cardio demands. We need a strong core, flexible yet stable feet and ankles, stretched out hips and strong glutes, and a supple spine shoulder and neck area to prevent injury and pain down the road. 

Finally, you have begun to practice step tracking, which we will begin to use to inform our actual cardio routine. 

Phew! It may feel like you haven’t done much- but all of this is very very important educational information to have before you get started with cardio. 

Over the next 15 days, we are going to jump into a cardio practice.

So for today, I want you to celebrate what you have done over the last 15 days! Enjoy your rest and recovery day! You can use this time to mentally prepare yourself for the next steps- cardio coming soon! (No puns intended here *wink wink*)

Continue to: 

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Day 14: Spine/Neck & Shoulder

Yesterday we talked about alignment of the hips and glutes. Today, we are focusing on the spine, shoulder & neck.

Without a strong back, cardio can cause low back, upper back, shoulder or neck pain, which is excruciating and can be a flare-up trigger. The entire physical alignment, from neck to shoulder to hips to knees to ankles, all need to stack properly on top of each other. By stretching the neck and pectoral muscles, strengthening the back, and creating more mobility in the spine, we are creating the proper building blocks for healthy alignment. 

To strengthen and stretch the low back, upper back, shoulder or neck pain as prep and protection for our cardio work, we are going to work on the following exercises: 

Beginner: Watch and practice video 5 spine neck and shoulder

Intermediate: 

Advanced: 

Please continue to: 

Post on Facebook or share with me! Is your spine feeling more supple and mobile? Do you see postural changes having worked on your back shoulder and neck areas?

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Day 13: Hips/Glutes

We cannot talk about cardio without talking about hips and glutes. 

We spend a lot of time sitting and as we sit, our glute muscle stretches out for long periods of time and our hip flexors get shortened and super tight creating a major muscle imbalance. So, we must stretch the hips and strengthen the glutes in order to restore proper balance to the body. We need those glutes to activate properly when we walk!

This hip tightness and glute weakness becomes a real problem when we start doing cardio. If we don’t balance out the two, eventually our bodies become misaligned. This means that our bones don’t sit comfortably in the joint socket and instead, it can cause grinding of bone on bone, which can lead to the wearing down of the hip socket, especially when we put repeated pressure on it through walking or running. Biking (or spinning) is another problem, it’s cardio but in a seated position and it stretches out the glutes even more, exacerbating this postural structure. I personally believe that this is a major contributor to why so many folks require hip replacements as well as knee replacements- because when the hip is misaligned, it affects the entire structure of the body and the leg in particular. 

So, today we are going to practice hips and glutes prep for cardio. We are going to make sure we stretch out those hip flexors and strengthen the glute and hamstring muscles, to try to create better alignment in that area of the body. 

Beginner: Watch and practice the hip and glutes video from Level 1

Intermediate: 

Advanced: 

These stretches and exercises are essential in the toolbox of cardio prep, because they strengthen and stretch all the leg muscles, making them stronger, more flexible and more mobile.

Please continue to: 

Post on Facebook or share with me! :How do these exercises all feel to you?

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Day 12: Cool Down Practice

Ok, last week we learned about the importance of a warm-up routine. Today, we are going to talk about the cool down routine. These routines are an important part of cardio- they are what make us able to do it more consistently, with fewer problems.  

Our cool down routine is going to look similar to our warm-up routine but will be slower and less rigorous.

As we learned, the warm up routine is about slowly increasing our heart rate, slowing increasing our bodies movement, so we don’t give a shock to your system by going from 0 to 60 too quickly. This is what will help prevent the body from experiencing too much stress at once and will ultimately help reduce the exercise induced flare-ups. The warm up routine is essential for getting the muscles ready for more demanding movement, which prevents injury. 

The cool down routine has the opposite purpose. We need to start to slow the heart rate back down, to release the muscles that became tight during the cardio exercise and begin to transition back into our normal, non-cardio body. The cool down is less essential than the warm-up when it comes to injury prevention, but it is an important part of reducing the possibility of negative after-effects of cardio, like body soreness, exhaustion and flare.  

A healthy cooldown routine has three parts: 

  • Foam Rolling 

  • Static Stretching

  • Relaxing cool down poses

Today, we are going to cover each of these three areas, depending on where you are in the process. As you practice this today, it won’t be a cool down because we haven’t done cardio yet- but I want you to understand the concepts and practice these habits and routines, before we pull everything together with actual cardio.

Beginner:

Intermediate: 

  • Practice foam rolling lower body

  • Next, stretch out using the basics from the static stretching video

  • Relax with these final poses (you can use the modifications if you prefer them)

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

Advanced: 

Forward fold 
Shoulder opener 
Cat cow 
Child's pose

Continue to: 

Post on Facebook or share with Andrea: What do you think about the warm-ups and cool-downs? 

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Day 11: Rest Day + Hydration

It’s another rest day! These rest days are essential. We are going to have a lot of them in this Cardio Party. 

On this rest day, I want to talk about another topic that is essential to healthy cardio: hydration.

Typically, people who do cardio think that if they drink a big glass of water (or sports drink) after a workout, then that’s all the hydration they need. That is further from the truth! Exercise makes us thirsty, which prompts us to drink water. And this is good. But- we actually need to be drinking water each and every day- even when we aren’t doing any exercise. This is actually part of the cardio prep routine. 

You see, if your body is properly hydrated, then it is better prepared for pain, injury and flare-up free exercise. 

The typical hydration recommendation is that we are supposed to drink our half our body weight in water each and every day. Most of us don’t do that, and many of us don’t come even close to that. (Coffee doesn’t count.)

Here’s how to calculate how much water you should be drinking. Take your body weight (or estimated body weight) in lbs and divide that number in half. That number is the number of ozs you should be drinking daily. For example, if a person weighs 150 lbs, they should be drinking 75 oz of water a day.

Hear me on this though: if you are not drinking the amount of water you need (or even close to it), that’s okay. I don’t want you to feel badly about it or talk negatively to yourself about it. I also don’t want you to go and inhale tons of water to meet this goal today. If you aren’t drinking that much, I don’t recommend that you attempt to switch to drink that much. You’ll be peeing all day! What I do want to encourage is a change of mindset and little baby steps towards making this a new and focused habit.

So, here’s what we are going to do. You know your water goal now. Write down your goal water intake somewhere (alongside your steps perhaps). Then, for the next few days, I want you to pay attention to how much water you are drinking. That’s it! No new change just yet- but paying attention and noticing is the beginning of a new focus, which leads to new habits.

And then when you are ready, I want you to add an extra glass of water. Let your body adapt to that new add for a week or two, then add another glass- and so on. That’s how we slowly increase. (Don’t worry, this will come back around in the Cardio Party, so we can do it together. I just want you to know where we are headed)

Baby steps, Autoimmune Strong style- even when working on hydration. 

So… let’s talk about water. Are you drinking it each and every day? How much?? Have you been focusing on your hydration before this or is this new to you?

Can you add an additional glass of water to your daily hydration routine? You can add electrolytes too- either in the form of coconut water, watermelon water, or these nuun tablets that I like.

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