Challenge: Let Motion Be Your Lotion

Today was day 7 of my 100 day workout challenge.  I have to say…I love the way my arms are getting more definition in them.  It’s nice.  I mean, they’re still far from perfect, they are pretty much relief society arms, but I really can see a difference.

I like that I picked 100 days because it makes figuring out percentiles easy.  I’m 7% done with my goal.  It may seem small but if I exercise three more times this week I’m already 10% complete with my goal and I will still have five and a half months to complete it.  I like that.

About the time that I decided I was going to challenge myself to 100 days of exercise in 6 months I started having problems with my left hip “sticking”.  I’d be sitting down on the sofa doing something and then I honestly couldn’t stand up without being in tremendous pain because my hip didn’t want to unfold itself.  Not only is it a pain and painful, it makes it really difficult to help Vivian when she needs me.  It also makes me feel like an old lady—I’m only 28 for crying out loud!

I think it’s probably because A). Because of my scoliosis, my hips are not turned out evenly  and though my surgeon tried to  pull them out a little more and make them more even, there was only so much he could do.

B). Is because I had a baby less than a year ago and my body has not quite recovered yet.

I realized that it happened on the days when I didn’t do my kick-boxing videos but I had done my aerobics videos instead.  I wondered if there was perhaps a correlation with getting my hip stuck and not kick-boxing.  So I tried an experiment and it’s true—my hip doesn’t stick on the days I kick-box.

I told my younger sister this and she thought it was interesting and told me of a saying she’d heard that’s “Let motion be your lotion”.  I guess it’s true in my case, because the days that I exercise are the days when I feel the best physically as well as mentally and emotionally. Even today, I was really dragging my feet to workout but once I was finished, I felt refreshed, awake and ready to start a productive day.

I think our bodies are made for motion and when we deny them that motion, they complain and make us feel worse and then we think we can’t possibly move because we feel so crappy.  Once we do start moving consistently we feel better—inside and out.  Maybe exercise really is a little oil in the joints that we need to avoid creaky hinges.