Exercise vs Joyful Movement Goals from a weight neutral RD

It's April!  One of my favorite months out of the year for many reasons.  Primarily because it signifies spring time and the natural world is budding and blooming, but also it is my birthday month!  This year I am turning the big THIRTY!  When I look back on all that I have accomplished during the last decade, there are so many things to be proud of.  On the other hand it also helps motivate me to work towards a few goals that have been challenging over the last ten years.  One of my goals, as you can probably guess, is to consistently integrate exercise, or as I will refer to it, joyful movement into my life to build health.

There are so many different pieces to building health!  The following are just a few important parts: a positive relationship with food, joyful movement, normal eating, stress management, positive mental health, self acceptance, and oral health (perhaps those can be a focus in coming months?).  While I believe that I am constantly, and usually subconsciously, working on my relationship with food and normal eating, I have struggled over the last decade to integrate movement into my life everyday.  This is in part due to the attitude I had around exercise.  I always looked at it as a way to control my weight rather than an activity that contributes to my health and well being, helps me feel strong and fueled for the day and improves my mood and attitude.

In my college years, I was a bit more sedentary as I wasn't participating in gymnastics in college like I had in high school.  But, I was walking to and from class everyday and on a larger campus, those steps certainly add up.  During the last couple years of my bachelors program, I really stepped up my efforts motivated primarily by weight loss.  I went to the little workout room in my apartment building every morning and spent at least 45 minutes on the elliptical while watching TV.  At the same time, I was on an elimination diet to heal my leaky gut, so naturally I did experience some weight loss and garnered attention from my peers.  Once my gut had healed and I had more energy from exercising, life sort of took over and my original motivations didn't keep me going.  I dropped my daily exercise routine, but I did learn valuable tools that I can use at this point in my life.

Early in the morning was key.  Back then, if I didn't get up early and get it done, chances are, I wouldn't do it.  While my goals and motivations have changed, I know that once the day gets started and my kids wake up, my focus moves to them and not myself.  Therefore I will be most successful if the majority of the days that I plan movement, I try to complete it before my kids wake up at 7:30am.  Also, using the elliptical was nice because it was low impact (previous gymnastics related knee injuries).  But I did NOT like the feeling of being a hamster on a wheel and actually using energy to expend energy, especially while watching mind numbing TV.  Energy use is important to me and I would much rather be out in the natural world, using energy just like everything else, from the power of my own body and muscles.  I would also like to focus more on how my body is feeling and work through the uncomfortable feelings that come along with body movement rather than tune them out.  

​These goals will naturally shift the focus from exercise to joyful movement.  Running five miles does not sound like a good time to me.  I haven't ever been a long distance runner (cross country just about killed me in middle school), but I have always enjoyed running sprints.  I did gymnastics in my youth and really miss it, so I will integrate some of the movement exercises that I used to do regularly.  I enjoyed taking Barre classes in the past and doing some Yoga.  I also really like lifting weights and jump roping.  These are examples of what joyful movement looks like for me.  It will look different for everyone depending on their previous experiences, what feels good in their body and their own movement goals.

Having that said, here are my goals and ideas to incorporate joyful movement for the month of April:

• Engage in some sort of joyful movement for at least 20 minutes six days a week. (I would say I average about 40 minutes every few days, so this will just encourage me to incorporate movement most days of the week)
• Wake up each morning with the intention of doing movement for 15 minutes to set the tone each day.  
• Joyful movement maybe any combination of the following:
  • Stretching
  • Yoga (youtube videos as a guide)
  • Walking at a good pace or with baby in your back
  • Barre (youtube videos as a guide)
  • Jump rope (working on double unders PR!)
  • Gardening and focusing on utilizing different muscle groups when bending down, pulling weeds, digging etc.
  • Punching bag routine
  • Lifting weights for lower or upper body or core work
  • Mowing the lawn (Now that the grass is getting greener!)
  • Gymnastics stretching and movements (cartwheels, hand stands, etc.)
  • Sprints down driveway and to the mail box and back (about a mile)

That looks like a great list to get started!  I will keep you all updated at the midway point in the month so look for that post in the future.  Today, I plan on taking a nice walk with my son on my back at Manito Park and playing on the jungle gym and swings with my daughter.

Until next time, eat well and enjoy moving your body!  ;)

Questions for comments:  Do you enjoy exercising or do you incorporate some form of joyful movement into your routine?  What are examples of joyful movement for you?  How have you been successful, or what have you struggled, with moving your body in the past?