[mountain walker]

Hello fellow chicks. I have had some wonderful advice on this forum inparticular as I think to understand the um....challenges of being over 300lbs you kind of needed to have been there or thereabouts at some point.
After struggling with my painful knees following exercise/rest/am/pm and anywhere in between I think I have had a lightbulb moment!
Guess what? I don't have to slog my heart out every day enduring the bl**dy awful pain in my knees.
I can......drum roll please....VARY IT!!!
It goes back to the whole all or nothing thing doesn't it?
This week I stopped taking anti-inflamms to protect my asthma. I took my painkillers at a sensible time and I have alternated my long walks with short slower ones followed by some exercise at home on the trampoline and with small weights.
Today I did the longer harder walk and 64 lengths of the pool but tomorrow I am going to take the puppy with us so the walk will be slow and short!
I have also managed to get easily back on plan after a couple of not so healthy days last week. My previous weight loss attempts would have immediately hit a wall and I would have ended up putting all the weight( plus a bit) back on!!
I hate to speak too soon as I have a long way to go but at the moment it feels like a life long "all or nothing" switch has been turned off!!!
Sorry to ramble on but I am sitting here with aching muscles instead of horribly painful knees and it feels sooooooo good!!!

[time2lose]

Congratulations on working it out. I believe that there is not a one size fits all and we have to find what works for us ...... what we can do long term.

[mnemosyne]

That is a really good point! One of the things I find interesting about the literature, too, is that short sessions stitched together throughout the day are fine. I try to exercise 15 minutes in the morning and make up the difference when I get home from work. I often get home from work so late, that after dinner / watering / chores, if I exercise for a long time I will be up to 1 a.m. (that endorphin rush WAKES ME UP).

I do think I need to be more varied now though and add in weights and stuff to the usual walking. I have some interesting exercise videos I have not used in a long time (hula for fitness, anyone?) that I should break out, too.