Remember; a body in motion will stay in motion while a body at rest remains at rest.
When I started to realize I was getting sick I did what most of us do. I began to live a sedentary life. It was impossible for me to do anything physical so I stopped doing things that were physical. I thought I was pretty crafty at hiding my breathlessness and getting around the issues of bringing attention to my SOB. But it got worse and worse until it became so bad that I could hardly walk across the kitchen to get a glass of water.
When I finally saw a specialist he said that if I attended Respiratory Rehabilitation the therapist would have me walking around the block in no time. Oh, I laughed and laughed. That might work for others I thought, but that will never work for me. I was so full of “I can’t do that” that I refused to believe it.
After I started Rehab I started to dream of the freedom of walking by myself around the block, enjoying myself in Mindfulness. I started to imagine that happening to me in this life time and it brought a sense of excitement and hope that I had not dared have for at least 10 years before this.
While attending Resp Rehab I was educated; I was given a voice, the tools and the encouragement to do it. My power was in my choice, in my thoughts, and in my actions.
I started out by saying, “I hope” this happens, then I began to say “I can” make it happen and finally I said, “I will’ make it happen.
As I achieved the small goals over and over again, I built on those goals and increased them. I am still alive and I am determined to make the changes I need to stay alive a bit longer.
Courtesy of You Tube.
Make Smart Goals and Hard Goals.
SMART Goals
Specific– The What, How, Why. I mainly use a peddler or treadmill but challenge myself to Elliptical and walks around the block once a week. I also do weights for upper body and breathing exercises every day.
Measurable Time, Distance, Weight I set a time a work toward that goal and specific times for each type of exercise, Increase weekly or monthly.
Achievable Start out with achievable goals and build up. Don’t set lofty goals that cannot be reached, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Realistic Only you know about what you can do and what you can’t or won’t do. Be realistic as possible and remember your own limitations.
Timely– Hold yourself accountable and make an appointment with yourself for at least an hour a day. This is your hour; make the most of it.
HARD Goals
Heartfelt – Make your goals heartfelt to motivate you. Know what you get out of it.
Animated Think of how to celebrate, make it a decadent reward.
Required– Create a sense of urgency. Make it mandatory and make it required. Your life depends on it. Make it a priority.
Difficult– Make it as difficult as possible., but also be aware when your endurance has increased. Be Proud of you,
This is my exercise tracker and doing this is a great idea to satisfy my adult colouring passion as well as my creative side which is quit limited as you can see.
This one was from August. I was feeling good and at a glance, you can see that I really only had two bad days.
This one is September and you can see at a glance that I have had good days but a total of 6 really bad days in this particular month.
However, I did my best to make a strong finish. It is easily a quick view to tell my doctor how my month has been and it is easier for him to digest then going over numbers. Also, being able to compare on a month to month basis is a huge advantage.
Decide what is important to you and what factors and activities you need to keep track of. My doctor wants to know what the environmental factors where when I began to get good or bad symptoms, how active I am and what am I doing to help myself.
So I track Air Quality, Humidity, Temperature and Dander.
I track my endurance exercise for Steps, Distance, Time and Calories.
Strength and Weight Bearing Training are things I dislike the most but strive for 3 times a week and usually get to about once or twice.
Once a day I try to do some Mind-Body exercise in the form of Meditation that is free and so easy to download on my tablet or smart phone and worth its weight in gold. Every night I go to sleep with the sounds of Thunder from a Nature Sounds app. I do some Breathing exercise every day and am going to begin playing the harmonica. Anyone wish to join me?
I suffer from many setbacks with this disease and it seems that I am constantly starting over. When symptoms are bad I find it hard to exercise and then I recover and begin the work of increasing on a daily basis.
That is why I track my daily chores I complete too. They are not easily done and when I can’t do them I have cause for concern.
Track your goals to encourage yourself and see what you have accomplished so far and how far you have to go. Make SMART goals and HARD goals and Improve your goals every day, week and month.
Our goals are as different as our disease; so our goals need to be unique and made for us, by us.
Don’t try to
make anyone else but yourself happy. Embrace your victories by knocking your goals out of the ball park. Your only competitor is you.
Once a goal is achieved it is pretty satisfying to check it off the list. Then create another goal and work at maintaining and adding to this goal next week.
Don’t forget to reward yourself with something that is decadent when you meet your goals.
Remember that all opinions are my own. I am only a Warrior like you.
Next week we will talk about how to keep a Journal of Goals and Daily Exercise Schedule.