One thing I struggle with, along with my weight, is just how to exercise in such a fashion that I don’t get burned out or hurt or both.
When you are chunky, like me, normal things like jumping jacks or pushups can turn painful really quickly. It’s easy to pull a muscle running, or get knee / ankle / foot / back pain. Sports are awesome, because of the commitment and camaraderie and all that, but they increase the risk of injury, too. I’m also not as young as I used to be, and that isn’t helping any.
My mental game goes something like this: “I ran yesterday, so I need to take a rest day.”
So far, so good, but then the next morning I get up at 5:00 AM and think “Hey, my ankle’s a little sore, maybe I better not run on it today, I’ll take another rest day.”
Next morning: “Wow, I shouldn’t have had that glass of wine last night, I slept right through the alarm and now there isn’t time to run.”
Do you sense a pattern here? End result: I’m not running enough.
Setting goals is all well and good, but I’m doing really lousy at keeping to those goals. And with the perfect excuse of “I don’t want to overdo it,” I’m pretty badly sucking at this get in shape effort.
Meanwhile, I have found a great activity that doesn’t put a lot of stress on knees, ankles, etc. Swimming laps. We already go to the pool just about daily to beat the heat and get the kids a little worn out. And while looking for suggestions (another thing I do: read too much about everything. Reading, usually, has a small risk of injury, I have found) And I found an awesome description of why exercise (swimming, in this case, but any exercise) is awesome for you.
Consider the purpose. Simply enough, it is just to increase the amount of oxygen you can absorb, thereby enabling you to continue exercise without stopping. It is the definition of fitness. Specifically, you want to increase the surface area of your lungs’ alveoli and multiply your mitochondria. Imagine the surface of the interior of your lungs as bubble wrap. You want the same area divided into more bubbles. The mitochondria multiply because you respond to their demand for more oxygen rich blood with a refusal, infuriating the hungry little organelles which then enlarge and multiply to meet your needs.
(and I’m skipping a bit)
Now, about this breathing and discomfort business. No gasping and no 100% efforts at this stage. This should be constructive exercise, NOT do or die. Will there come a day when you are completely relaxed and breathing gently and easily throughout the swim? Not really. The wish to be a bit better, which in aerobic sports like swimming and running means faster, remains with us. As we improve, most of us strive harder and continue to raise our heart rates, so there is always a bit of panting. It feels good. Yes, it is actually a pleasure to work out hard, to feel used up at the end of the swim. Oddly enough, most of find that we are more productive during the rest of the day as a result of working out.
From Ruth Kazez. Look around her web page, ’tis awesomeness.
I need to keep at this exercise thing, to do something. Cuz I think staying fat is probably the worst choice I can make.
The last time I lost weight (yeah I gained it all back!) I started walking 15 minutes one way then I turned around and walked back to the starting point and went back to work. When I first stareted out I didn’t get very far but I kept at it and by the end I was walking about 2 miles in half an hour. I was also eating healthy every two or three hours. It really worked. I went from a size 20 to a size 14.
I was talking to my husband the other day telling him I want to start doing that again.
Best wishes on your weight loss journey. It a hard thing to battle but if you really want it you can do it. 🙂