Creating a Sustainable Routine
Why it is so difficult to stick to a routine and how to make it easier, something that has been on my mind for a while...
Embarking on a consistent Physical Activity (PA) routine can be challenging. You’re not alone if you struggle with a lack of energy or fatigue that leaves you feeling too tired to work out, even when you know it would help. Or maybe you struggle to find the willpower to keep going, especially on tough days.
First let’s look at the difference between movement, exercise and physical activity. Movement is any change in the position of the body or its parts, including voluntary actions like walking or stretching and involuntary actions like breathing or blinking.
Exercise on the other hand is a planned, structured, and repetitive physical activity that is performed with the goal of improving or maintaining physical fitness (e.g., running, weightlifting, yoga).
As for PA, it refers to any movement of the body produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure. So it includes structured movements (ie exercise) or unstructured (daily activities like walking, cleaning, or gardening).
Weekly Recommendations
The general recommendations for everyone, living with or without MS, is at least 150 minutes a week. For a lot of people, this can feel daunting, especially if you’re starting from scratch.
But the main issue for most people is to decide what exactly they should do. We all receive endless advice about the “best” workouts, the “key” to longevity, or the “most important” exercises and it can be paralysing, rather than motivating. Questions naturally arise: Should you prioritise strength training, stretching, or cardio? Is yoga beneficial? Are activities like walking and gardening sufficient?
Personally, I believe we need to include a wide variety of movement (the same as we need to include as many colours on our plate as possible!)
Range of Motion (ROM): Ensuring full ROM prevents stiffness, improves flexibility, and supports joint health. Without adequate ROM, muscles and joints become restricted, leading to poor movement patterns and increased injury risk.
Stretching: It helps to reduce muscle tightness, which can limit movement and cause imbalances. It improves flexibility and muscle elasticity. It also makes us feel better. But as research by Hélène Langevin shows, stretching also helps to reduce inflammation.
Strengthening: Stronger muscles provide better support for joints, improving overall movement efficiency. We also know that when muscles contract, they release these wonderful myokines which play a key role in communication between muscles and other organs to regulate metabolism, inflammation, and overall health.
Movement in all planes: This is often overlooked but we spend a lot of time doing forward and backward movements (for instance when we walk, sit and stand up etc). But our body is meant to also move from side to side as well as to rotate. Moving in all three planes of motion (sagittal, frontal, and transverse) enhances functional strength, mobility, coordination, and prevents injuries.
By incorporating ROM, stretching, strengthening, and movement across all planes, you develop balanced mobility, flexibility, and strength, leading to better performance, reduced injury risk, and improved overall movement quality.
But what if exercise could do even more: tailored precisely to your body's needs and health conditions?
The Dream of the Future: Personalised Recommendations
The science of exercise is evolving rapidly. I was quite amazed to find out that according to research conducted by the CEED, the European Centre for Diabetes Studies, when we contract our triceps, we produce a specific myokine called DECORIN, which turns out to be highly beneficial for people with diabetes. The researchers consider DECORIN a promising therapeutic target for diabetes-associated inflammation and diabetes itself. This discovery highlights the power of specific exercises (like strengthening the triceps) to promote better metabolic health.
From a sci-fi or futuristic perspective, it's easy to imagine a world where we all wear advanced monitors that track our unique needs and provide personalised fitness prescriptions based on our DNA, muscle composition, and individual health markers. Picture a smartwatch that, every morning, tells you the exact movements needed to optimise your well-being. Personally, I don’t think this is far-fetched: it feels entirely possible. But for now, we still rely on general guidelines to shape our routines.
Finding Motivation on the Tough Days: One Step at a Time
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from my PhD supervisor, who told me, A good thesis is a finished thesis. The same applies to movement. We can spend hours planning the perfect routine based on the latest research, analysing every detail, but in the end, the key is to simply do it. Taking action, even imperfectly, will always be more valuable than waiting for the "perfect" plan.
Because motivation isn’t about grand plans or fleeting bursts of energy: it’s about consistency, even on the days when you don’t feel like it. Building a fitness routine shouldn’t feel like an insurmountable task. It’s about showing up, one step at a time, in a way that feels right for you.
True, there are mornings when the weight of the world, or maybe just the weight of your own limbs, makes getting out of bed feel impossible. The alarm buzzes, but instead of jumping up, you hit snooze. Five more minutes. Then ten. Your workout clothes are neatly laid out, a reminder of the commitment you made to yourself, but right now, they feel like a challenge rather than an invitation. A voice in your head whispers all the reasons to stay under the covers: You’re too tired. You’ll do it later. Missing one day won’t make a difference. Deep down, another voice (quieter, but steadier) reminds you why you started. It nudges you to move.
This internal battle isn’t just about willpower, it’s about perception. What if the way you think about physical activity could shape your physical health?
The Hotel Maids and the Impact of Mindset
The Hotel Maids and the Placebo Effect study by Alia Crum and Ellen Langer (2007) explored how beliefs about exercise can influence health outcomes, even when physical activity levels remain unchanged. The researchers worked with 84 hotel maids, many of whom did not consider themselves physically active, despite performing strenuous tasks such as vacuuming, lifting, and scrubbing as part of their daily work.
To investigate the impact of mindset, the researchers divided the maids into two groups. One group was informed that their daily job met the recommended levels of physical exercise necessary for maintaining good health. The other group received no such information and continued their routines without any change in perception.
After four weeks, the maids who had been told that their work qualified as exercise exhibited notable health improvements. Without altering their actual physical activity, they showed reductions in body fat percentage, lower blood pressure, and a healthier waist-to-hip ratio. These results suggested that merely believing they were engaging in exercise triggered real physiological benefits.
The study highlights the powerful connection between perception and well-being. It suggests that mindset alone can influence health, reinforcing the idea that how we think about our actions can shape our physical reality.
The Wellness Journal
I decided to create a Wellness Journal for a month to help you track your movement (and assess what qualifies as strengthening, stretching, cardio etc), to reflect on your habits and discover what truly works for you (is joining a live class easier than doing your own thing), and, most importantly, to build motivation.
When we stop seeing Physical Activity as something we need to do and see it as something that makes us feel better, we will stick to it!
The Wellness Journal is free to download HERE. I would really love to hear from you if you decide to give it a go.
I hope this tool will help you start a truly sustainable routine and help you feel better about yourself and your body.
Much love
Véronique
