Physical Fridays: “Increase by 10%”

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Pacing…

It’s the main thing that I need to be able to do properly to have a reasonable lifestyle with these illnesses.

Its also the main thing I still haven’t quite got right…

I think I’ve told you before that my doctor has asked me to increase my exercise at 10% each week (Graduated Exercise Therapy) and this has been going well.

I’m up to being able to walk about 30 minutes or ride about 10 minutes a day. Obviously I’m listening to my body and don’t exercise on days when I’m really bad because I don’t want to crash.

The problem is that, although my exercise is going well, the overall pacing isn’t working too well. I either do too much during the week and crash all weekend or the opposite, too much on the weekend then crashing during the week.

Over the next month this struggle with pacing is going to be even worse! The Foggy Frog Kickstarter campaign starts this Sunday (only 2 days away) and then we have just 27 days to raise the $7,500AUS (approx $6,000US) to finish the drawings and publish and distribute the picture book to those that need it. On top of that I’m hoping to attempt a very part time return to work as soon as I can get my doctor to agree (going to talk with him next Wednesday) and I’ve now got appointments with a Physio, an Exercise Physiologist, and a Naturopath next week!

I think in the long term my best bet is to use the same technique for all activities as I’m doing for the exercise (raising by 10% each week) but in the short term I’m just going to focus on taking very regular rest breaks, ensure I do a good combination of rest and activity, and finding a balance between all the different aspects of my life.

One Final Note:

As I mentioned, the Kickstarter campaign begins in 2 days. We’re hoping to launch with a bang and spread the message that we want our stories heard. We’re doing this through our Thunderclap and we’ve almost reached the minimum number of people needed for it to go out (we only need one more person to join us)!

So please, if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, join our Thunderclap. Click here and choose “Support with Facebook” or “Support with Twitter” and you’ll be joining us in reaching out to over 85,000 people on Sunday afternoon (Saturday night in the US) and letting them know that we deserve to have our stories heard too!

Do you think the 10% increase rule is a good way to go?

How do you find balance in your life?