Everyone is doing it...

Thankfully I didn't die from my tooth removal surgery! It did knock me on my butt more than just a little and it sucked (duh). No relapse to report, but I believe the lack of exercise and the increase in apathy towards movement resulted in increased leg pain and worsening of secondary symptoms for a while. I haven't blogged lately due to well, life. I feel like changes in my schedule and over all life plans being shuffled around have kind of sucked the wind out of my sails. That was until a few weeks ago that is. That's when things started popping up to reignite my push to move.

First, I saw a commercial on tv for myrafitkit.com. The add laid out exactly the things I write about here! It said specifically that working out leads to increased mobility and less pain for Rhuemetoid arthritis patients in particular. This fit kit is an individual workout that factors in the strengths, weaknesses and goals of each individual person. I honestly didn't spend too much time on the website but the commercial laid it out pretty clearly. It was awesome to hear on national tv how exercise is beneficial to another disease!

That was cool and inspiring enough but then the next day I received the winter edition of my MS news magazine, Momentum, from the National MS Society. Inside I found a Mobility Alert article discussing strength training, and the questions surrounding it. Inside the article I found a study from the University of Florida that explained low intensity workouts with standard gym equipment improved muscle strength and reduced overall fatigue and disability in just eight weeks.The article went on to explain different types of exercises and offered some guidelines to follow such as how important it is respect your fatigue and discuss everything with your Doctor.

Nice timing right!? Ok but then shortly thereafter my mother jumped on the fitness bandwagon! My 54 year old mother suffers from osteoporosis and has a lot of physical limitations, but she truly has the desire to take advantage of all the health benefits I keep telling her about. She's interested to find out how exercise strengthens bones and provides more energy. For her birthday this year I bought her a stability ball and put together a simple routine with exercises targeting all the major muscle groups. She did well in our little 'personal training' session and the next day was so excited about her new goals that she even came with me to a cycle class! Cycle classes at Lifetime Fitness are among my top 10 favorite things... in the world. Here, I am able to pedal at the pace my body needs that day while listening (and reading on the screen) the instructor telling the class buckets of inspiring things such as; "nothing works unless you do," and "no one cares about the number of times you fall- they care about the number of times you get up". I can get a hold of many, many more phrases, and yes when the sweat is dripping into my eyeballs and I just want to quit those things keep me going. I was so proud of my mom that day and I was left feeling truly validated for all the time I spend raving about exercise!