exercise – Fantastically 40-ish

12 months later…

Posted on February 14, 2023February 15, 2023 by nlchronicles

Sometimes, I don’t feel as energetic or as pain free as I’d like to be now, even after being diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylitis. Then I remember where I was just one year ago! I am so thankful for the improvements and positive changes that I’ve had over that time.

I started recording my walking and workouts on the app Map My Walk in June 2018. How do I know this??? LOL I looked it up yesterday because I went walking at one of my favorite local places. And it was FAST; well fast for me. I looked at the app to check whether I had ever recorded a mile pace that fast.

And NO I had not! 🤩

Yesterday’s pace was a 23 minute mile. I was listening to music and imagine my surprise when the music diminished and the voice of the app stated the one mile mark with the pace time! I even went back and checked last year’s workouts when I was struggling just to get out of bed. I didn’t have the exact date but I did have a couple of times listed for February and both one mile pace times were over an hour!

AND, I was still walking with the cane then!!! 😧

I am so thankful and grateful for the opportunity to pursue better health and to actually feel better. Days like this are a wonderful reminder of progress. And thank you for rocking with me throughout this journey!

exercise

Finding a routine

Posted on February 8, 2023February 15, 2023 by nlchronicles

I joined a wellness center. It’s affiliated with my job at a local hospital and it’s in an area I frequent most in the city. Now I’ve just got to find a routine and stick with it!

When I lived in Chapel Hill, my apartment complex had amazing facilities so I didn’t need to join a gym. And the weather tended to be alot warmer year round than where I now live so looking for a gym was not as pressing. I chose a wellness center that has a gym, well, because it’s a wellness center. With the exception of a sauna, it has every single thing that I was for including a steam room and heated pools.

The challenge is fitting workout time into my day. It’s easy to do a quick yoga routine or treadmill workout at home but I also need a bit more than just those two. At first, I thought that going before work might be an option. But since I’m in school as well, I use the mornings to cover homework so that’s out of the question.

At least for now!

So my goal has been to go one time per week and try different elements each time. I have started seeing a chiropractor twice per week and I am upping my gym time to twice per week – heading to the gym while I’m already out!

Today I tried out the elliptical machine for the first time on about 3 years. Dealing with the osteoarthritis, which turned out to be Ankylosing spondylitis, made using an elliptical extremely difficult. I did 10 MINUTES! That seems very small but it’s a jump from not exercising on it at all 🤩🤩

Any suggestions on how to add another day at the gym? I’m open to all suggestions! Hoping your health journey much success this year 🎊🎉

exercise, self-care

Exercise – Wellness Wednesdays

Posted on May 12, 2021February 15, 2023 by nlchronicles

Welcome to Wellness Wednesdays! Today’s focus is exercise. Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.

For most of my life, I’ve tried to incorporate some type of exercise. As a teenager, I ran track for a couple of years. I tried out for field hockey and made the initial cut to do conditioning but that level of running left me exhausted. Looking back, this should have been a stop sign to find out why I was so exhausted. In college, I worked out fairly consistently my freshman year and lost about 25 pounds. But when my course load increased sophomore year, physical activity decreased. After graduating, I worked at an hmo and went to the gym there several times a week but it seemed that I toned more than lost weight. And the saga goes on and on. Frustrating, yes?

Around 2011, I started having issues with my hip and so I chose yoga and stretching to help ease the concerns. And it worked! Another clue but I still hadn’t taken the time to put all of it together. I walked a good deal and did other higher impact aerobics but was just maintaining weight. Then I started following doctors and nutritionists who focused on PCOS. That was a game changer.

Basically, I had been doing a lot of the wrong type of exercises for me. While exercise is wonderful, the body believes there is stress and increases cortisol- your fight or flight hormone. Well with pcos, that hormone is hard to get back down and that increases the storage of fat and inflammation, especially in the gut. So I’ve changed to longer, slower walks and always stretch at the end. I try to do a yoga or Pilates based workout twice a week. Weight training probably once per week. I limit hiit workouts to maybe twice per month. Sometimes I cycle or do the elliptical at the gym, when available. And that’s it! After years and years and years of thinking that the harder I went, the more I would lose 🤯 I don’t have to do that. How amazing to have that revelation! And I have still lost 97 pounds in the process! 🤩

So I encourage you to find the workout that is best for you. Comments, questions? Drop them below and share what works for you. See you next week!