Exercise! Love it or hate it, let's motivate each other to just DO IT!

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Old 12-20-2006, 08:42 AM   #1  
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Question Need Help starting

Hi everyone,

I need some advice/encouragement to help me get started. Let me give you some background on me first.lol.
I'm a 31 year old stay at home mom with 2 beautiful boys, aged 2 and 7 months. We take walks outside, but I do not have a double stroller and when the snow finally decides to come, it will be too hard to get out with the 2 kids. But, I do have an exercise bike. Its something that I do enjoy.
I try to get some work on it every day. But right now, I can only do about 7 minutes before I am tuckered right out.
I have about 80lbs to lose. Boy that seems like such a big number when you see it written!
I really want to do this. I have been heavy ever since I was a teenager, and I am SICK of being fat. I want to be able to run and play with my boys as they grow up and I get too tired to do too much right now.

I guess I just wonder how everyone got started. Did you start with diet or with exercise? How do you stay motivated?
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Old 12-20-2006, 11:16 AM   #2  
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Good Morning Barrie, I'm so glad you found us. It sounds like you are also a BUSY mother of two young boys. I remember those ages, not much down time to yourself. At least not in my case. I also have two sons, 8 years and 3 years.

Cycling is great exercise and a good place to start with cardio. There is no impact and it can really get your heart rate going. So keep it up. Set mini goals in your cycling like maybe adding an extra two minutes each week. Before you know you will have the endurance to cycle much longer than you thought possible today. Be patient with yourself though. If seven minutes does it for you in one session, then maybe add a second session later in the day if you can.

I can understand how daunting an 80lb loss may seem. However, it is not impossible. There will be many mini victories that you will experience along the way. The "good stuff" doesn't just happen once you've lost all 80lbs. After I lost the first twenty pounds I felt like a very different person. Then it just snowballed from there.

For me, I was so confused and frustrated regarding diet that I turned my focus to exercise. I knew I needed to do something but felt like I had failed so many times at just dieting that I needed a new approach. I grabbed a treadmill and started walking. After walking I began to add strength training. Once I mastered cable machines I then began lifting free weights. Soon my cardio endurance and gradual weightloss in walking allowed me to begin running. About three months into my program I began to "hit a wall." I just didn't have the stamina I needed to accomplish the level workouts I wanted complete. So I began to research what I could or should be eating to improve my performance. After a little research I began to see a general theme and that was a balanced diet of 40% carb, 40% protein and 20% fat eaten in mini meals five to six times a day. Several people have followed a program referred to as Body for Life which promotes this type of balance. There are other programs as well. I found that I needed to read, learn, apply and tweak to find a fit for me.

My motivation is ultimately just to be fit. When I started I was also daunted by the number of pounds that I needed to lose. So I decided that I would focus not upon the scale, but what I could accomplish in strength and endurance at the gym. I was going to be the best that I could be without the scale affirming success for me.

I stay motivated through little life events. One such event occurred one morning when our three year old son crawled into bed with my DH and I. My husband looked at me and said "He will never know his mommy as overweight." Wow. That really got me. My commitment to exercise has become so strong that even my DH has noticed these changes and believes in them for me too. The little green dress that I got to wear to the company holiday party also was a great motivator to continue to be fit. Many people commented to my husband the following week at work about how attractive his wife was. It was the first time they had met me so they had no idea how I looked a year ago. Trust me, they would not have said that last year...at least not in my case.

Sorry for the long post, there was just a lot for me to share. There is a lot off good information with these forums so happy browsing and good luck with your new endeavor and those two young boys.
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Old 12-20-2006, 11:23 AM   #3  
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I just want to reiterate some of the things Lydia said.

I started mostly with diet -- I cut back on portions and brought a healthy lunch and snacks to work. For exercise, I just tried to "move more" at first -- rather than yelling something up the stairs to hubby -- I WENT up the stairs.

If you're overwhelmed it may help you to take baby steps. you can do 7 minutes now? Next week make it 8. Then 9. I think sometimes we push ourselves to do everything, can't, feel like failures, and quit.

As for 80 pounds being a lot, yes, it is. But don't think of it in such big terms. Do you think you can lose 5 pounds? Focus on that first. Then the next 5.

Finally, I think it helps to have goals other than the scale. So many things affect our weight: water retention, TOM... and weight loss just isn't linear. So I find it helps to have other goals along the way. Yours might be the first time you do 10 min on the bike at a time, or counting the number of days in a row you exercise... things that you CAN control!
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