It's not a secret that I can't just walk into a gym and start doing cardio exercises or pick up weights and start doing what everyone else is doing. I start walking and my oxygen drops to 80 and my heart starts running a marathon.
This is NOT to say people with chronic illnesses cannot exercise. We do what we can when we can. There may be some who can run, do cardio, go to the gym regularly. Then there's some who do yoga and pilates. Or there's me, who for a while, couldn't do anything at all due to the pain and high heart rate. It's important to realise you don't need to do what everyone else is doing. Go at your own pace and only do things that won't hurt you.
At the beginning of 2019 I started doing light stretches in the morning and moved onto doing yoga in the evening. It was going great until it wasn't. That's when my mental health slowly started declining which is why I stopped doing any sort of exercise.
I then spent some time trying to get back into some sort of exercise, and decided to look into yoga again. There was a lot I couldnt do anymore physically which made it hard. That's when i decided to create my own routines.
After a lot of research looking into yoga, pilates, ab workouts, cardio and anything else relating to weight loss and taking into account my limitations, I finally came up with a routine.
I took certain workouts from each type of exercise and made my own routine, starting with stretches and working my way around, starting slow and ending with some slightly harder exercises. It took some time to be able to do the whole routine from beginning to end but I did succeed. On days I wasn't feeling my best I would only do the easier ones from my routine and adjust things as needed.
It helped. Quite a bit. I was losing inches rather than actual weight, but that's what I needed as most of me is just swelling and water weight. Mentally, I felt good overall. I was very happy with what i made and what I achieved.
Once again, due to poor mental health and my physical health becoming worse I had to stop it all. Fast forward to today, I've had surgery for the pain and although it didn't work 100%, I'm going to try to exercise again. The plan is to figure out what my body can handle right now, start off with my routine, adjust things, start water aerobics and possibly add in some extra exciting things.
It can be hard to know you can't do things other people can. That your body isn't your best friend. It's important to realise that your body works in its own way and you just need to find something that works for you.
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