When you are thinking about lymphedema and exercise, most people know the importance of staying very active.  It’s no longer a choice.  If you want to control this condition naturally, you need to keep the lymph moving and that means you need to move…a lot.

If you think about it, that’s actually a blessing.  I have been a lifelong business owner, so I work a lot, and I used to struggle with working out.

With lymphedema, now, my motivation is different.  I don’t think about whether I should work out, I just do it.  Scared straight!  But with lymphedema, one workout a day is not really enough.  We need to be just simply moving more, and more often.  That’s where I struggled…what could motivate me to fit even more exercise into an already long day?

Fortunately, I found two great tools that have helped me immensely.  Separately, the tools didn’t do much, but together they achieved something amazing by helping me spend far more minutes every day exercising.

They are far less expensive than a personal trainer—you can get both for under $200.  I found this to be an amazing and no-brainer investment in my health.

Lymphedema and Exercise Tools

The Fitbit product has always been a tool that impressed me, as long as you don’t use it to track your food.  That may work for some people, but I found no benefit from that.  In fact I ate way more!  I purely use it for the exercise time, steps and hills climbed.  I like the heart rate monitor too, but that’s not necessarily needed.

If you’ve never used one, Fitbit allows you to track your exercise time, steps, floors climbed, and more.  I love it.  If you sit a lot like me, having 10,000 steps to shoot for is vital.  Plus with lymphedema we can’t sit too long so we need to get up as often as possible.

This is the version I’ve used, The Charge.  I find it amazing.  It has built in alarms and also will remind you if you sit for too long.  I love it!  Plus I have found Fitbit to provide great support.  They have twice replaced the unit when I have had problems, free of charge.

But Fitbit alone didn’t get me moving as much as I would have preferred.  It took one more component…

Linking Fitness Trackers with Grokker.com

There are many great online yoga websites.  I love yoga but found the required time to walk or drive to a class turned it into an impractical thing for me to do regularly.  Instead, I discovered the wonderful streaming services which give you access to a wide variety of classes without going anywhere.

Early on, I watched them on my computer, but that didn’t last long.  Fortunately most of the streaming yoga services can either be streamed on Chrome, or on Roku (which is my preference since it has its own remote). For a mere $35 or so, these tools help you stream on your TV.  So you can have famous yoga teachers in your own living room.  It is fantastic.

I’ve used streaming yoga services for years now.  I did use them, but not as often as I should.

Enter Grokker.com.  I did a free trial with them and loved it, so joined for a year (a year is about $112, a bargain compared to $18 individual classes).

Grokker really stands out because they have a great system that’s built to keep you motivated.  You can quickly schedule programs in advance on your computer, and you’ll get a reminder email to keep you on track.  Then, you can record “I did this” and a great dashboard tracks what you’ve done.  This little system helps me keep doing yoga more often.  It’s like a personal trainer bugging you to show up.

Fantastic!  I was already hooked and doing yoga more now.

But there’s more…

Fitbit plus Grokker = Even better!

The final piece of the puzzle is how Fitbit and Grokker can work together. You can use Fitbit (or other fitness trackers) and by adding one setting, it will synch with Grokker.  So Grokker can be the place you view everything you do.  It has a cool weekly minute tracker that will track your activity and “coach” you to beat what you did last week.

I find this incredibly motivating.  I’m not exactly sure why, but it works!  I will get little emails congratulating me for “taking it to the next level”.  That, combined with Fitbit’s showing me my daily progress, keeps me wanting to do more.

They also have frequent challenges where you sign up and everyone’s progress is compared.  You are motivated that you need “10 more minutes today to beat Joe and April”.

It’s all in good fun…and highly motivating.

Get a free trial of Grokker.com so you can check it out!

Better than a personal trainer

In my late twenties, I used a personal trainer for a couple years.  It was a huge expense but helped me get and stay in shape when I was very busy with work.  But to me, this combination is better!  I find it so motivating.  My husband laughs at me for it, but it works.  And the price is right:  for a one time cost for the Fitbit, then an annual cost for Grokker of about $100 per year, it can provide a huge return for a small investment in your health.

Of course, there are other choices out there and many phones have free fitness trackers, so definitely try it and see if it works for you.

Bottom line:  lymphedema and exercise go together, so whatever can motivate you to do more is a great thing!

Try Yoga Free! Get Fit With A Free, No-Obligation Two-Week Trial at Grokker.com Today!

Are you using a fitness tracker and Grokker or maybe other programs and tools together?  Let me know how it’s working for you.

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