My Progress!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Buffed, Beautiful and Bitchin'!


Sorry, I couldn’t NOT give a little shout out to Vera when we're talking about exercise. Of course it is just for your amusement. I'm quite fond of my bazooms so I won't be purchasing this particular workout to follow.

However, now that I have 10 whole lbs off, I figured it is time for me to start thinking about getting physical (cue Olivia Newton-John…just another little earworm for my faithful readers). At this weight, I am somewhat limited about what I can do. I’m limited for a couple of reasons. The obvious reason is my size; and honestly, let's just face it...at this size ALL my reasons are fairly obvious. My poor body is just having a very difficult time hauling itself around lately and for good reason. As I’ve mentioned before, I not only have gained weight in the last year, but I lost a lot of muscle mass as my daily activity decreased to almost nothing. I work from home, I have someone who can run errands for me, shop for me, etc so even the normal every day activity I used to get disappeared.

Initially, the help with errands and shopping was done more because I was the breadwinner and literally was working about 80 hours a week while I put my husband through school. He took over a lot of the other household duties while I scheduled practically every waking moment with some kind of work. In my mind, it would be worth it once he got his degree. Then, all hell broke loose with my son and the school placement we had him. It was particularly traumatic for our family and came at a very fragile point in our marriage. Once the dust cleared, our marriage was toast and we were struggling to get T on even footing again (which took lots of hospital stays and more). As I said, when T and I finally moved out, I went into a deep depression and everything just snowballed for my physically.

I’ve always enjoyed exercising…once I can get going and get a routine in place. For me, it’s taking that first step that always seems to be so hard, and lately I have more than enough excuses at the ready. I’m currently on medication for problems with my heart, blood pressure, thyroid, diabetes, and depression. I also have a history of chronic migraines; like 3-4 a week although they’ve gotten much better since I started the on blood pressure medication which makes me think my headaches weren’t migraines at all. When I try to exercise, I always have to worry about keeping my heart rate in a certain zone or it will trigger migraines…I know other people suffer from exercise-induced headaches as well and I’ve had them all my life, no matter what size I was. Even when I was in the best shape of my life I would get migraines if I exercised too intensely or got my body temperature up too high.

So…finding some exercise that I can do can be a bit of a challenge, especially lately. I know that I could do pool walking. That is great for getting my muscles back in shape, it keeps me cool. Apart from the embarrassment of getting into a swimsuit (which I really don’t care about at this point lol) its perfect for me. The weather, however, makes it a bit of a challenge to find a pool to use. I can join the gym over at my bariatric center, but it would take $300 that I don’t have at the moment. The only YMCA with an indoor pool is in a bad part of town and I decided it was going to be practically impossible to get there in the rush hour traffic. So, at least for now working out in the pool is on hold.

I have a sturdy treadmill at home I could use. I bought it at least 3 years ago and of course it’s hardly been used. It supposedly will accommodate my weight, but lately, my heart rate goes up almost immediately and then surpasses the “safe” zone in the first 5 minutes. I decided the other day that what I should probably do is start some strength training exercises and work on getting 20 minutes of cardio in a day even if it’s just jumping on the treadmill for 5 minutes at a time. I have to start somewhere right?

I’ve been trying to find some ideas for strength training exercises that I can do that don’t require me getting on the ground because once I’m down, it’s going to take a village to get me back up. I found some seated exercises here and even though I’m sure I’m going to feel like a complete loser doing them, I’m going to give them a shot.

Now I just need to get my fat butt UP to do it. How do you get yourself motivated to exercise? Better yet, how do you motivate your teenagers to exercise…he’s my next challenge!

5 Comments:

Unknown said...

Ewww, that Jim C character always gave me the willies. Yikes.


I know what you mean when you talk about losing muscle mass. I had 8 surgeries in a little over 3 years, and the last one involved a lot of bedrest both before and after. I was SHOCKED at how fast I deteriorated. I actually looked this up. Did you know that you lose muscle mass on the FIRST day of bedrest? And I spent weeks and weeks mostly in bed.

If I were you, I wouldn't be worried at all about any specialized exercise. I would simply be walking. I see you have the 12 Million Steps in your blogroll... he does more now, but I believe he just started by tracking the number of steps he took in a day with a pedometer and then increasing the number incrementally.

As far as the teen is concerned, I don't have one. Mine are just 7 & 9, but I'll tell you what I do... During the summer, I don't let them game until they earn it through activity. They use the Wii fit. Their gaming means everything to them, so it works okay. I still get a ton of whining though.

Also as soon as the weather changes, we're walking to and from school to exercise and to save money on gas.

Just some thought.

Good luck!

Dina said...

I'm with Hopefool. Walking is great, and doesn't make you feel like your going to die.

I wake up early to exercise and just make it a requirement for my day. I don't let myself start with excuses (even though I can still think of a million)

Ashley said...

It seems like you have an amazing plan in place. My motivation is usually seeing really cute clothes. For example, today, my husband and I went to the mall, and there were huge sales going on. We went to JC Penney and Sears. There were so many adorable tops and really nice pants on sale, none of which were in my size. When I got home, I was so motivated by wanting a cute wardrobe that I pushed through the pain of my soreness from my workout yesterday, and completed the whole DVD. I'm one day closer to being able to wear those cute clothes I so longed for today!

My Big Fat Super Super Obese Blog said...

All great tips!! I have literally two closets full of clothes that still have price tags on them. I should probably break some of those out and keep them where I can see them. I'm so tired of wearing the same thing all the time, but I refused to spend money on clothes in my current size!! Thanks for the comments, as always they are motivating in themselves :)

Mrs. O said...

If walking is too difficult for you, I think those seated exercises are great to begin with. Start with one, try it out, and just do what you can, then add a different one to the mix every day. As you keep trying other seated exercises, your body will begin to develop muscle mass again and you'll be able to increase the amount of reps you do. Just make sure you're taking in enough calories and water. For your weight, you should be at 2500 calories and no less than 96 ounces of water a day, more when you exercise. Less than that will make your body go into starvation mode and retain water.

Keep your mind positive! It's the key to success. :)