Welcome to the get moving series!

Motivation is often hard because we challenge ourselves to do too much, and then we fail because it's all too overwhelming. The key to success is thinking about how you can make it more simple. Do less. Do a little bit, just enough to kickoff the repeatable habit. And then you can do more as you keep going... Here’s an example. For this week, just watch the ab bracing video and learn that exercise. For the rest of the week, just try to ab bracing once a day for 1-5 seconds. That’s it. I promise, it’s super effective, and a little bit goes a long way. Habits are slow to build, so give yourself grace. The more you show up for yourself, the easier it becomes. And, if you need an extra boost- working with a coach is always helpful! Learn more about our small group coaching and one on one coaching options here.

It's okay to be nervous... in fact it's quite common. So many of us have been hurt and had flares after moving our bodies that it's hard to believe that this will be different. This is why the program begins so slowly, so you can show your body that a little bit of the right kind of movement feels good, and your body (and your mind) will build trust and momentum and eventually the fear melts away. It's a process, but just being here is a good first step. My best recommendation is to start with ab bracing, and stick with that for just a few seconds everyday. Your body will begin to realize that this new style of “exercise” isn’t so hard and overwhelming after all, and you will be more likely to break free of the fear that is holding you back. Remember that a few seconds can actually go a really long way. I also recommend reaching out for support whenever you need it. I am here for you! I also suggest posting to the facebook group if you are comfortable. If you haven’t already, sign up for an accountability buddy. You can see how some current members lean on each other in this video. And, if you need an extra boost- working with a coach is always helpful! Learn more about our small group coaching and one on one coaching options here.

Getting started is very hard, especially when you are in a constant flare. I have seen many many people start this program while experiencing a flare, feeling weak and fatigued and overwhelmed with life's responsibilities- and after they begin, they start to feel better! So yes, I do believe that you should start, even if you are in a flare. At Autoimmune Strong, we have many options to support you if you are beginning while in the midst of a flare. Here is my advice on how to begin in a way that makes your flare up feel better rather than worse. Start by taking a deep breath and release it slowly. I bet your body is accustomed to shallow tense breathing. This act of deep breathing will start to slow you down and release the tension. Recognize that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Flares are triggered by stress. Pushing through life will only exacerbate this. So, taking some time everyday for yourself is not selfish. It will actually help you recover so you have more energy to devote to your family. Ab bracing is the perfect exercise to begin with. It can be done anywhere, even in bed, and it doesn’t require much energy or effort. Start doing it only for 5 seconds or less. If that even feels like too much, then just start by watching the video. Eventually your body will be willing to give it a try. Don't wait until the flare ends to start- that may never happen. Some people are in flares for months. I encourage you not to put it off, start now- but do just a little bit and take extra rest days. Go very very slowly. Start with a few seconds of ab bracing. That's it. And then you can add in some gentle foam rolling. A little goes a long way. Get Support. Talk to other members about what they did while they were in a flare. Members love to share their experiences, so be sure to join the facebook group and ask! Finally, if figuring this all out on your own seems overwhelming and daunting, don’t worry- I designed the 30 Day Flare Recovery Challenge to guide you. It may sound overwhelming, but it’s actually designed to help you use exercise to feel better. You can learn more about the challenge here.

For all of my former exercise junkies, I will provide you with two tips: 1) Autoimmune Strong is designed to build in intensity over time. What you do in Level 1 is not the same as what you do in Level 6. If Level 1 feels easy and you have no flare-ups, then great! You can move on! But- I encourage you to really examine yourself- the ease of the exercise isn’t everything, it’s about how your body reacts to it. The best result is if you can do the exercise without exhaustion or flare-up. That’s when you know you can move up in the levels, when you have no exercise side effects. 2) Your brain is going to always want to push harder or go faster through this program than you should. Remind yourself- that intense kind of exercise didn’t work for you in the past. So, even though it’s hard, I ask you to trust the process here. These Autoimmune Strong exercises may feel too slow and easy, and that is your challenge- to relax into the pace of it and to learn how to read your body again. Let’s recover from the flare-ups and give your body a rest, and teach it how to build up intensity in a way that makes you feel good.

This is something that so many of us struggle with, including myself. I recommend that you try to give your body some grace instead of beating it up with frustration feelings over the things you can't do. Exercise is a great way to begin that journey back to finding joy back in your body. So, perhaps instead of focusing on what your body can't do today, you can feel good about the baby step of progress you made today! It's all about practicing a change in perception. The progress you make while also loving each baby step may eventually surprise you. You may find things coming back as you strengthen your entire body. Stick with it, change will come!

I totally understand your feelings of despair, I have been there too. Grief and sadness are common emotions when it comes to autoimmune disease and exercise. But perhaps I can offer another perspective. I wrote more about grief in this blog, hopefully it will help.

Autoimmune Strong is not a weight loss program. It is the Autoimmune Strong philosophy that exercise should focus on building strength, mobility and flexibility- and above all- feeling good. Millions of people, with all different body types, are in pain. Losing weight is not the solution. I propose that we work towards releasing your body from the pain you are in... and as we do that, I bet that losing weight will be a happy side effect.

Walking CAN be great exercise. For some people, it makes them feel great. But for others, it can exacerbate their exhaustion, pain and flare-ups. You can learn more about the connection between walking and flare-ups by watching this masterclass lecture here. If you love walking and it makes you feel great, then by all means, go ahead and walk in addition to Autoimmune Strong. But if walking doesn’t make you feel great? Skip it for now, and just follow Autoimmune Strong. This program will build up the right muscles, strength and flexibility to get you back to walking- and having it feel good! If walking is something you want to work on, Autoimmune Strong style? Then you should join the Cardio Party! I created this cardio program to help guide you through a way to add walking to your Autoimmune Strong exercises.

It depends. Swimming and/or water exercise can be great for some people and very difficult for others. There is a misconception that swimming and water exercise, like water aerobics, is gentle exercise. It is gentle in that it’s less impact on our joints, but for some people it can be incredibly exhausting and flare inducing. So, if you can swim or do water exercises without any exhaustion, pain or flare-up, then by all means, continue this along with Autoimmune Strong. If not, then I recommend that you stop and switch to only Autoimmune Strong until you build up more strength, endurance and exercise tolerance and then you can try again.

Absolutely! If the walk is essential to your wellbeing, then by all means, take that walk! All I would ask is that you give a good look at how you feel after that walk. It sounds like it makes you feel better... but if it doesn't, then it is time to figure out another way to get this same self care break. Journaling can be very helpful here because you may not feel the effects immediately; it can come hours or days later. So try to keep track of what the walk was like and how you feel each day.

The philosophy behind Autoimmune Strong is that intense exercise causes autoimmune symptom flare-ups, which makes it difficult, if not impossible to get any benefits from exercise. Typically, when people exercise to lose weight, they tend to push their bodies harder than they should, in order to get “weight loss results”. For most people, not only don’t they get the weight loss results they were hoping for, but they also experience setbacks due to exercise intolerance and added stress. I believe that we cannot jump into a more intense fitness program when we live with autoimmune disease, because when we try to use intense exercise to quickly lose weight, we find that it causes a flare and sends our body into a symptom tailspin. As a new member to the Autoimmune Strong program, I don’t recommend adding in exercises for weight loss to the Autoimmune Strong program. This program is designed to help you recover and rebuild your exercise tolerance. If you follow it as designed, it will prepare your body for the additional exercises. will be more capable of exercising at a higher intensity down the road. Autoimmune Strong builds in intensity over time, and if you follow the protocol, and listen to your body, not only will your body feel better, but you will be better prepared to handle the addition of exercises down the road. There are lots of exercise programs out there that are designed for more intensity- and this more gentle pace and style of exercise is what sets Autoimmune Strong apart. The idea here is that using Autoimmune Strong's exercise methodology, you learn about what your body can and can't handle, and then you can build up intensity, frequency and duration of exercise from there. We start at this slow pace and build for a reason, to keep flares down while acclimating our body to the pressure of exercise.

First, I want to say that exercise each and every day is not always what’s best. Our bodies need rest and recovery days. So, I do encourage you to give yourself some grace there, as exercise each and every day is not a realistic expectation. However, I do recognize that things get tricky when you intend to exercise but due to the daily events end up missing that day. I know that this kind of thing can spiral into multiple missed days. So, here are some things you can do: Troubleshoot. If you miss a day because life got too busy, troubleshoot that. Identify what went wrong. Figure out how you will do things different next time. Because there will be a next time. Days get away from us always. So if you learn from it, you will grow. Look at your schedule, figure out when it makes the most sense for you to exercise, and commit to it. Put it on your calendar and put boundaries around it. Figure out if this skip comes from a schedule place or an emotional place. Some people find that they skip because they are actually really nervous/fearful/overwhelmed about exercise. Identifying what you are feeling is really important. And if you want to talk to someone about it, I encourage you to email me or post on the facebook group, or schedule time with a coach here. We can all help you figure out how to move past this. Finally, there is a good thing about the stop and start process. Each time you stop and then start again, you reinforce the habit and you are more likely to stick with it.

To get started, some people like to watch the videos and get accustomed to the idea of movement before they start, and so you can do that if you want. It’s a great way to ease the fear you might be having about getting started. But the answer to this question is that yes, the instructional videos are meant for you to do the moves along with me. These videos provide the information you need, and they go at a slow practice pace. The workouts are more advanced, and should be done after you feel very comfortable with the instructional videos.

I recommend that as a new member of Autoimmune Strong, that you start by following the calendar. There are three different calendars that go at three different paces, and there is a quiz that will help you figure out which calendar is the right one for you. You can learn more about the calendars and the calendar quiz by clicking here. Once you pick your calendar, then you can watch the instructional video and practice the moves simultaneously, following day by day. And on the weekends, you will get to the workout videos, which string the exercises that you learned in the instructional video together at a slightly faster pace. The calendar is meant to be a guide, not a hard and fast rule, so if you feel like you need an extra rest day, take it! OR if you want to repeat a video, do that! Some people like to stick to the schedule rigidly, others like to move things around. It's up to you. Alternatively, the 30 Day Challenge is a great way to get started. For 30 Days, you will be emailed guided assignments that will give you daily instruction on what to do, for 30 whole days. To learn more about the 30 Day Challenge and see if it’s right for you, click here.

Yes! You can always switch to a slower paced calendar. Absolutely. As to where to begin, it depends on what you think. You can start back at the very beginning of the calendar, or you can begin in a similar place to where you left off. It’s completely up to you. However, if you want specific advice, we are happy to provide. Please email me or post on facebook or ask a coach here.

I typically prefer for the calendar to feel too easy. If you can do these exercises and follow the calendar without flare, that doesn’t always mean that it’s too easy- it might mean that it’s just right! I recommend spending at least 1 month on a calendar just to be sure that you can be flare free. If you really feel it’s too easy and you can complete the month without a flare, then you can absolutely switch calendars.

If you are new to Autoimmune Strong and doing the 30 Day Challenge, then no, I don’t recommend following a calendar to begin with. The 30 Day Challenge tells you exactly what to do, and at the end of the challenge, you are guided to a calendar selection. If you have been doing Autoimmune Strong for a while and are currently on a calendar, then yes, you can continue to follow the calendar and adapt the 30 Day Challenge to that calendar (which we can help with- please email me or post on facebook or reach out to a coach if you want advice on how to do this here).

I know you are worried about jiggly arms and such, but I do encourage you to trust the Autoimmune Strong process. Arm exercises come later in the program for a reason- and here's why. Our core is often not strong enough to handle weighted arm movements, and despite it being an arm exercise, the main stabilizer muscle is always the core. So- this means that our bodies have to power through those arm movements using other non-core muscles that are not designed for this kind of work, this puts our body at risk of exhaustion, flare-up and injury. This is when shoulder, back and neck injuries occur. So, the Autoimmune Strong philosophy is to strengthen the core, along with the back first, and then introduce arm exercises when our bodies are ready for it. But don’t fear- arms are included in so many exercises as stabilizers- they will get stronger along with the rest of the body.

I would encourage you to determine if you are totally flare free when you do exercise. If so- then great! You can absolutely make this more challenging by adding weights. But I encourage you to be careful and not push harder than your body can handle.