exercise....a nasty word?

[Cindy M]

Hi Coffeelover, I would love to have the...i'm not sure energy...commitment....determination....anything to just walk for 10 to 15 minutes per day or every other day. I do have to say that talking to you guys and gals gives me hope and the yes I can do it feeling. So starting tomorrow I will do some sort of excercise, even if it is going up and down my stairs a few times during the day.

[jola57]

hey Lisa, today I broke the 90 kg. I'm down to 89.7. Yepee. And this after having Polish food for the past month.

[Sangye]

Good job!

Cindy, stairs might be way too much to start with. If so, try walking outside for longer stretches (go for time, not speed or intensity). You can build up a lot of endurance, core muscles and improve your balance just by walking.

[coffeelover]

Hello my dear friends! I sure miss you when I am gone!
This is my busy season at work, so my time is limited and on my days off I like going to the lake or spending time outdoors somehow. We have so few nice days here in MN.
ANYWAY........back to the thread
My recent "defeat" is I have been working daily on the extra exercise besides my morning stroll and I am gaining weight. Not lots, but each gain is a frustrating venture. ARGHHHHH how frustrating! I will not give up though. It is so easy to feel sorry for yourself and I am refusing to fall in that category. I did have one day of poor me, but the next day was better. I guess that is OK.
It is a common scene, this continued self promotion! I am sorry for those of who who absolutely cannot have any physical activity and I wish you the best. I hope your self promotion and self encouragement keeps you encouraged to keep trying and with all this postive talk help speed your remission time.
I am on to more threads to catch up with waht I have missed this week.
thanks to you all for your constant encouragment. This group is the best thing that has happened to me.
LIsa Coffeelover

[Cindy M]

Your right, actually today I have decided to actually do some house cleaning instead of just sitting and looking around at what needs to be done. It is taking a bit of time but I do feel like I have accomplised something.

[capabayan]

I have been trying to up my exercise a bit by adding to my regular daily morning walk a 10-15 minute short exercise in the evenings. I am somewhat discouraged as I am not losing the weight at all (still on pred) by adding the additional exercise. My question is:
Am I expecting too much too soon?
Should I really be exercising this much? (although this is nothing compared to my before WEGS diagnosis.)

I feel your pain (quite literally)!! Before WG, I used to be extremely active - running 2 miles 4-5 times a week, doing serious hiking several times a month, swimming, etc. Then WG hit... and I did hardly anything for about 1.5 years simply because I had NO energy (and also have airway problems due to subglottal stenosis). This past February I was able to start walking, at first only 10 minutes a day, but at least I was up off my rear end actually moving. Didn't see any changes... but after a month or two I was able to add more to my exercising. I have since found the Leslie Sansone walking DVD's to be both challenging and fruitful.
Around May (3+ months later) I finally started losing a tiny bit of weight, albeit very gradually. I was down to 10 mg Pred. I think a huge part of the delay in weight loss is that we need to build up so much muscle first, just to be able to do the cardio exercise that burns the fat. At least, in my case, that was what needed to happen. So I was actually gaining a little bit due to muscle regrowth - which then gave me the strength to start doing more aerobic-type walking - which then helped me start losing weight.
Once that started I lost about 7 pounds in as many weeks. Unfortunately, I then went on 2 vacations and lost about a month of exercising... so now I am trying to rebuild the strength and get off the weight plateau. Could be another week or two before I start losing it again, but at least I know now that it is possible!
I guess, having said that, the 2 main points I want to make are:
1 - Be patient and wait for your muscles to regrow. If you are at all like I was, they had some MAJOR atrophying while I was in the early stages of treatment.
2 - Cardio, cardio, cardio. While it is important to not fully neglect some strength training (biceps curls, chest presses, etc), the aerobic walking (that gets you out of breath, speeds up the heart rate, and makes you sweat like crazy) is what will help you start losing the pounds.
It's hard. I know. Sometimes it is discouraging. But it IS possible.

[coffeelover]

Thank you so much Elzabeth! YOU do encourage me to keep it up
Lisa

[jola57]

Umph, back to 91.7, I feel like a yo yo

[coffeelover]

Umph, back to 91.7, I feel like a yo yo

I am with you on the yo yo ride.

Maybe if I stop having those lattes?????

[Doug]

Me, too, capabayan! I think the building of good habits sometimes is subverted by an unrealistic expectation that months of neglect are going away after a week's worth of exercise, a month's, whatever. I'm feeling like I can do something about my inverted turnip-shaped body! I have an unassembled tool in my spare bedroom that came just before a round of family visits here. I need to forget the Japanese cat videos and other fun distractions for awhile, assemble the dang thing , then...use it!