Recover, Restore and Rebuild—A Safe, Progressive, 3-Month Plan for a More Resilient Body
By John Du Cane
Download free copy of Week 1
Welcome to the Fit For A Day program—which has been expressly designed to enhance and strengthen our recovery. Fit For A Day takes into account the physical, emotional and spiritual vulnerabilities the recovering person needs to address on a daily basis.
The “Easy-Does-It” approach of Fit For A Day aims to embed daily fitness habits as a beloved component of our recovery program. Fit For A Day promises us gentle, consistent progress toward a healthier, more balanced, happier and less uncomfortable body.
By reducing our body’s discomfort, we reduce one of the risks for relapsing back into our old behaviors. Fit For A Day helps stack the recovery deck in our favor.
In our dependence on drugs of one kind or another, we often wrought havoc on our overall physical well-being. Through inactivity, our systems have become sluggish. We may be weak, underweight or overweight. Our posture is most likely poor, leading to numerous physical dysfunctions. Our breathing may be shallow and stress-inducing. Our tissues may be laden with a variety of toxins that continue to bedevil our well-being. Many of our joints may feel painful and we may suffer from recurring aches. We may have trouble sleeping restfully and may feel groggy during the day.
The Fit For A Day routines are designed to progressively alleviate these impediments to feeling good in our bodies.
As part of our “dis-ease profile”, many of us know that we have a tendency to be impulsive, compulsive, driven and overly competitive. When we are striving to regain our physical well-being, it is all too easy for us to jump in to exercise with the same wild abandon with which we once embraced our chemicals of choice. However, compulsively overdoing exercise can all too frequently result in further discomfort and a disappointment that can lead us to either abandon our exercise goals or in some cases relapse back into using.
Fit For A Day recognizes the need for a consistent “at-least-this much”, step-by-step approach to building a sense of self-worth and well-being, in a safe manner.
The different exercises are chosen for their gentle cleansing and strengthening power. Slowly, over the weeks and months, we will add new levels of challenge to our routines, as we progress in restoring and rebuilding our physical capabilities.
We make a choice every day, just for that day, to stay clean and sober. There are ways we can make that choice easier rather than harder. The more we reduce any kind of distress or discomfort in our lives—be it physical, emotional or spiritual—the easier it can be to safeguard our recovery and make safer, wiser choices for that day.
Recovery is a delicate plant that needs careful care and nurturing as it grows in resilience. When we feel uncomfortable in our body, we are more likely to seek to medicate the discomfort. When we feel uncomfortable about or even feel ashamed about how our body looks, we can be more prone to medicate our psychic stress.
The pain that can arise or persist from a lack of proper, consistent exercise can tempt us toward medicating that pain rather than addressing its underlying cause.
In Fit For A Day we seek to reduce the vulnerabilities to our recovery from these various dis-eases, dis-satisfactions and dis-comforts.
The ancient and oft-quoted Latin adage, Mens Sana in Corpore Sano translates as “a healthy mind in a healthy body”. Fit For A Day takes that message to heart: “be healthy in your body to be healthier in your mind and spirit—and therefore your recovery.”
What are some of the likely excuses that might stop us from starting and then continuing a fitness program to complement our recovery?
Here’s a possible sample: “I don’t have enough time.” “I am too weak and out-of-shape.” “I’ve tried all kinds of programs in the past and they don’t ever work for me. So why try again and just fail again?” “I hate gyms.” “I can’t afford it.” “Don’t you need to buy or have a bunch of equipment? That’s more than I want to take on right now.”
Fit For A Day meets all of these excuses head on! As one teacher put it: “Yes, you have the time, you have all the time there is.” In other words, the no-time excuse is really a value statement, in this case about exercise. However, even the most hardened time-hoarder can’t baulk at a “Just-For-Today, do these five quick minutes.” And the value of that five minutes will quickly be felt in terms of an enhanced sense of well-being and greater energy.
The “too-weak” excuse. Fit For A Day has three fitness tracks, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. All three levels are initially and deliberately set at a very low fitness bar—and your track can vary for any particular exercise. However out of shape you might be, you can still engage successfully with the program.
The “it won’t work for me” excuse is met by a slow, slow “progress-not-perfection” approach where the results and benefits are incremental—like a sensible, doable hygiene practice you eventually would feel uncomfortable to be without.
Fit For A Day requires no equipment and no gym attendance—or other related expense. It’s just you and your own body, in the privacy of your own place, be it home or work. At most, we may suggest having access to a pull up bar some way down the pike, but it won’t be a requirement.
Of course, you can most certainly do significantly more exercise of any kind you care to, beyond the “at least do this much each day” routines offered here.
On the first six days of each week, there will be a single main exercise for strength and/or cardio, one or more joint mobility exercises, a breathing exercise and a brief isometric hold. We give you a space to log what you actually did for the day.
We do something every day—there is no rest day. However, the seventh day is a special joint mobility and breathing-only day and is considered restorative.
Each week has a cycle of three routines that are repeated twice, with the restorative day on day 7.
At the end of each 4-week cycle we congratulate you with a page for you to write in your results and celebrate your progress.