As a great 2007 song taught us….
Ladies and gentleman of the class of 2007, wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proven by scientists. .. Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience, I will dispense this advice now… Baz Luhrmann
Replace sunscreen with exercise…. You got this!
I get asked all the time how I manage to still lift. I am always very vague with my answer, because to me not lifting isn’t an option. When I was finally diagnosed, there was never a part of me that thought my life was over. Life was just going to be different.
As I have mentioned before I had to rearrange my training in order to combat some of my pain. This is an important part of maintaining a training/lifting schedule. You do not need to quit! You need to listen to your body and understand that lifting/training/being active is good for you. It’s good for your mind, your body, your pain and your inflammation.
Chronic pain = STRESS; if you don’t have an outlet the STRESS will eat you alive. This is the most important part to me. Working out gives me power over my Lupus over my pain, for 2 hours I am just JJ. I’m my own superhero, I’m defeating the days STRESS along with the STRESS of combatting chronic pain all day, doctors appts, feeling crappy, fatigue, medication sickness and a whole host of other things. That time in the gym belongs to me and only me.
Shoot your body, your pain, your inflammation; the more active we are the better we feel. There are days I would love to lay in bed after work and just do nothing, because everything hurts; but I get up and go (thanks James). You know what? I’ve never said, gee I wish I hadn’t lifted. Once I get my muscles moving and my joints stretching, everything starts flowing and moving – BOOM! Boom – just like that I start to feel better. You start to feel like you fit in your skin again.
Yesterday was chest day. It was gray, rainy, crappy and my joints felt all bunchy and I felt thick in my own skin. You know that feeling where walking upstairs hurts because the joints are too thick. Thick and clumsy. They didn’t want to bend. They didn’t want to lift.
Symptoms can be destroying….
But I told them to Shut the F Up, climbed in Jeep and drove to the gym. Walked in. Started my workout. After my first set I was still a lil sour about being there, but you’re there so you finish; right?! After a while I looked down and realized I’d been there for 45 mins, with a great fat burning heart rate. I was kicking butt, and it had been 45 mins since I thought about my pain…. 45 mins since I was scared to walk upstairs….
Lifting.
Lifting with Lupus.
Lifting with Lupus and symptoms.
Being sick does not give you a “get out of exercise free card”. Research shows the regular exercise leads to a decrease in symptoms and pain, and an increase in energy.
It’s very easy to allow ourselves to be sedentary. To, really; die while we are still alive. To look at the negative over the positive. To determine in the morning how much we can do for the day. To count SPOONS as a way of representing ourselves. To think that we can wear our illness as a crutch. To think that we have nothing else to offer than a Lupus Instagram and a sob story about what we can’t do.
How is any of that lifting our spirits?! All it does is feed into the negativity cycle creating more STRESS and giving more FLARES; causing more issues…
I’m sick and tired of listening to sick and tired.
Change.
Move.
Get out of your head, you are more than what you think you can accomplish today.
Lupus is not a crutch, when it becomes one it wins. Do not let IT own you.
http://www.lupusny.org/about-lupus/fight-lupus-body-and-mind/exercise-and-lupus