Fighting to stay active

In the last 5 and a half years, since I was diagnosed with RA, I've found it harder and harder to motivate myself to stay in shape. Frankly, I became so afraid of the pain that I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice of exercising... What made it worse is that before this journey began, I like being active. When I was in the Marines, we would run sometimes just because we were bored...

So how do you motivate yourself knowing that the sacrifice isn't just time? It's likely that your pain will increase. I would give almost anything to be able to run like that again... I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist but it seems like the key to this type of motivation is wanting something / having a goal. The other thing that I have to continue to remind myself is that God wasn't surprised by my having RA. I firmly believe that having RA is the best thing for me, because I trust that the Lord is true to His word.

I've also read many things about exercising best practices and they always say to have an exercise buddy. I have two - my daughter Petra and my son Liam.

In most cases, Liam comes with me while Petra comes along when she can.

Most RA patients deal with morning stiffness. Mine tends to last between 45 and 90 minutes. So, I try to get started working early, at my job, so that I can use my lunch break for working out. I have been blessed to be able to work from home, so this is actually pretty easy.

So far we've been at this for about 6 weeks and thankfully we're seeing results. I was starting to push beyond wearing a 40 inch waist pant comfortably, but my middle is slowing deflating... 

I also read recently a study done in the UK regarding chronic fatigue, which is common with RA. I've added it below

It doesn't say whether regular exercise has either a positive or negative impact on chronic fatigue, but that would certainly be interesting data.

Be well, today!