Hi softlistenin1, I've moved your post to the Diet & Fitness section of the forum, as I think it'll be a better fit in here.
Yes, I find that exercise helps me a lot! It's not enough by itself to keep me in remission, I still have to take my meds and get enough sleep and eat right and all that good stuff too. But exercise helps a lot, especially with things like my depression & stress levels. I'm far less depressed and deal with stress much better since I've been exercising regularly, and that in turn helps my guts. It's helped me physically too of course - a combination of being really sick and losing weight, and also being on corticosteroids, robbed me of most of my muscle mass. Regular cardio, yoga, and weight lifting sessions have helped me gain back my muscle mass and then some!
I prefer weights, that's my favorite thing to do. I don't jog although I'm trying to get into it. I have arthritis in my right hip which prevented me from jogging, but I just got a couple of steroid injections into the bad hip about a month ago, and although I had some wicked side effects from the injections, I think my hip is doing better now. So I'm now trying to ease into jogging to see if I can do it without pain. Jogging is really the only type of exercise that has made my hip feel worse, though - biking, elliptical, arc trainer, etc are all pretty easy on my hip, so I can still do other forms of cardio even if I can't jog.
As for tips, for anyone reading this who may be thinking of getting into fitness - take it slow at first, don't push yourself until you know how your body responds to various types of exercise. When I started lifting weights, I was going 2x a week and was lifting light weights so as to not upset my body too much. Now I lift every other day, as heavy as I can handle - but I had to build myself up to that level. If something hurts, as jogging has in the past for me, try to find something else you can do. I can't jog but I can bike. Even if you're just doing something gentle like slow walking or gentle yoga, it should give you a lot of benefits, so start slowly and try not to get discouraged if your body doesn't fully comply with your fitness plans!
