Gettin' Movin'!

The first day back to work is on August 30th for me, so from today until then, I have nothing to do. Since I have all of this excess free time, I've decided now's my chance to stop talking about exercising and actually start doing it! I started last Thursday and Friday with a two-mile bike ride each day. It felt good to get out and do something, but the bike ride felt like more of a workout for my legs than it did for my lungs.
Now, I'm not trying to exercise to lose weight because with CF losing weight is not a good thing. My purpose of exercising is to get my lungs working to get more mucus out than just what I get out with my treatments. It's also good to exercise for my bones and overall health for my body - which is why I'm calling it exercising instead of working out. And I'll admit, I'm lazy. So I've been talking about getting up and doing this for so long, I'm finally glad I'm taking some action.

After I realized that riding my bike wasn't working my lungs as much as I wanted it to, I thought about walking. Tim's aunt and I walked for a little while on Friday night and it was a nice start. Eventually, I think I'd like to start running...yes, that's right, running. And for anyone who knows me, you would know that I hate running. But I feel like it would have the best results for me, so my plan is to work up to that. I can barely run a block without getting out of breath, so my plan is to start walking a lot, then maybe start jogging a little bit while walking, then hopefully I'll be able to increase my stamina.
To throw in a little variety and fun, yesterday Tim and I went out to Game Stop and I bought Zumba for the Wii. I've heard from many people that it's a lot of fun, so I thought I'd give it a try. On crappy, rainy days like today where I don't want to go outside, I think something like that would be great for me. I tried it today for 20 minutes, and I haven't stopped clearing my throat since! It didn't make me have a huge cough attack (which I don't mind because I hate those), but I could definitely tell that it got some stuff moving around in there. YAY! Let me tell you, I probably looked like a complete fool trying to mimic the moves on the game, but hey, if it's going to make me feel better and get my PFTs up, then I'm all about looking like a fool for 20 minutes a couple days a week! I have a doctors appointment coming up in a few weeks and that's my motivation right now. I'm due for a full PFT so I really want to kick it's butt this time since the past couple of doctors appointments there hasn't been too much change (which isn't bad, but I'd rather see my lung function go up than stay the same). The full PFT is much more in depth and done only once a year, as opposed to the smaller, simpler test that I get done every time I see my doctor. Something else that I want to try is mowing the lawn. I know, this sounds stupid to say that I'm going to try it, but I've never used a lawn mower in my life. Since we live in a house, we now have a yard that needs mowing every so often. We also live on a corner, so we have a decent sized yard that needs to be cut. Since Tim's been so busy at work, and working a lot of hours, I felt bad having him do it after working all day while I'm sitting around all day doing nothing. So as soon as it decides to stop raining this week, I'm going to have Tim show me how to use the lawn mower and I'm going to give it a shot. It's more opportunity for exercise and it's something that needs to be done, so why not?!
My only worry is that when school starts up again, I'm not going to exercise as much, or not at all. That's why I'm trying to find a variety of things to do, that I also enjoy, so that I am motivated to keep it up. I also think it's more fun and motivation to exercise with a friend. I've had a couple people volunteer to start walking with me, so that's been good. I'm just hoping that I can get into a routine, especially when work starts up again and keep this going...and never stop!