Freda...I hate exercising, how can you like it. I think it's soooooo boring. I do exercise every morning except Sundays, then I do it at night. Wish I could get some of your gumption, what's the secret?
I don't know Freda's secret, but mainly I exercise because it makes me feel good. The process of exercise can still be hard (especially the getting started part), but I ALWAYS feel great by the time I'm done. I feel happier, energetic, and somehow more in control of my life. On the days that I don't exercise, I feel depressed and sluggish. I guess I'm addicted to those endorphins, but it works for me. It burns calories, and I like having the strength and endurance that comes along with exercise. So it's all good. It's as much a part of my daily routine as my morning shower and coffee.
If exercise seemed like torture, then I wouldn't be able to stick with it either. If I start to get bored with my routine, I mix things up by adding different activities or setting goals around exercise. I am very blessed in that I am robustly healthy and I thank God every day for my health and the ability to do the physical things that I can do. I never, ever take that for granted. I think having an awareness that it is a blessing also helps turn what could be torture into a joy, because it is so wonderful just to move! I see so many people who just can't and I will do whatever it takes to preserve my mobility and independent functioning as long as I possibly can. I am working NOW so that someday I can retire and still have the capacity to hike, and bike, and swim, and run and have adventures!
Hey guys, no secret! I can't say I "love" exercise, I just love the way it makes me feel and look. I do miss it when I can't exercise. I get sluggish, I don't sleep as well. I do actually enjoy lifting weights. Maybe, again, because I have large upper arms, for my size, and I want them toned. It is easier to exercise when you keep it interesting. I love to walk outside in the summer time, and wave to the neighbors and check out all the flowers and plantings. Shoveling snow makes me feel strong! At times I am forced to exercise inside. I have the treadmill and bike in front of the TV and i wait untill something interesting is on and exercise then. it helps pass the time and makes something not so interesting, interesting. Yes, MBN, if you hate it you're not going to do it. Find something you do like. A walking partner is great. In the winter I can go to the local highschool and walk in the halls with friends and neighbors.
Lynn, You make those noodles sound good. I've heard of them for so long I think I have to try them. Congratulations on the weight loss!!!
Good morning.... gorgeous day here today! I'm so impressed with all of the weight loss and perseverance you folks show. At my one ounce loss a day (it seems), I despair of ever getting there. I'll be very, very, very old! However, one day at a time... thanks for the inspiration!
Hey guys, no secret! I can't say I "love" exercise, I just love the way it makes me feel and look. I do miss it when I can't exercise. I get sluggish, I don't sleep as well. I do actually enjoy lifting weights. Maybe, again, because I have large upper arms, for my size, and I want them toned. It is easier to exercise when you keep it interesting. I love to walk outside in the summer time, and wave to the neighbors and check out all the flowers and plantings. Shoveling snow makes me feel strong! At times I am forced to exercise inside. I have the treadmill and bike in front of the TV and i wait untill something interesting is on and exercise then. it helps pass the time and makes something not so interesting, interesting. Yes, MBN, if you hate it you're not going to do it. Find something you do like. A walking partner is great. In the winter I can go to the local highschool and walk in the halls with friends and neighbors.
Lynn, You make those noodles sound good. I've heard of them for so long I think I have to try them. Congratulations on the weight loss!!!
Freda
Hi Freda,
I agree about the exercise. I have become addicted to how it makes me feel. Also, I have a VERY sluggish metabolism. Without exercise, I can eat only about 900 calories if I want to lose weight - probably something to do with all the crazy diets I've gone on all my life. However, when I exercise, I can eat about 1200 calories & still lose weight. Finally, it REALLY helps with my cholesterol and diabetes.
Thank you for the compliment, but you are my hero. We started at about the same weight - I was about 10 lbs heavier, but I have NO hope of ever seeing 115 again. I will be happy if I ever get to 140.
Good morning.... gorgeous day here today! I'm so impressed with all of the weight loss and perseverance you folks show. At my one ounce loss a day (it seems), I despair of ever getting there. I'll be very, very, very old! However, one day at a time... thanks for the inspiration!
OK, Jess,
What actions are you taking today? Remember, we can do this ONLY one day at a time.
I don't know Freda's secret, but mainly I exercise because it makes me feel good. The process of exercise can still be hard (especially the getting started part), but I ALWAYS feel great by the time I'm done. I feel happier, energetic, and somehow more in control of my life. On the days that I don't exercise, I feel depressed and sluggish. I guess I'm addicted to those endorphins, but it works for me. It burns calories, and I like having the strength and endurance that comes along with exercise. So it's all good. It's as much a part of my daily routine as my morning shower and coffee.
If exercise seemed like torture, then I wouldn't be able to stick with it either. If I start to get bored with my routine, I mix things up by adding different activities or setting goals around exercise. I am very blessed in that I am robustly healthy and I thank God every day for my health and the ability to do the physical things that I can do. I never, ever take that for granted. I think having an awareness that it is a blessing also helps turn what could be torture into a joy, because it is so wonderful just to move! I see so many people who just can't and I will do whatever it takes to preserve my mobility and independent functioning as long as I possibly can. I am working NOW so that someday I can retire and still have the capacity to hike, and bike, and swim, and run and have adventures!
Sorry, feeling philosophical today ....
Hi MBN,
I recently started working with a trainer to "mix-it-up." I was doing ONLY aerobic & really needed to get into some weight training - hope to strengthen my shoulders (often have problems there) and to speed up my metabolism. I meet with him again tomorrow - if we don't get flooded out from Noreaster.
I have to agree, exercise does make you feel wonderful, did not always feel that way, but I set out to find some routines that I knew I would push play everyday, Turbo Jam, started my love for exercising, then bought a belly dancing followed by a Yoga DVD, and on my cable we have on-demand, and tried jillians 30day shred, that was a very tough one for me, since I don't have much upper arm strength, I put too much pressure on my wrists, that I couldn't do any weight bearing exercises for about 3months, so I will stick to what I know works for me. I also agree, mix it up, don't let yourself get into a rut, make it as much fun for you as possible, the rewards are endless!!
I recently started weight lifting, now that I'm getting to that stage where the monthly should be leaving me alone, I find I needed some extra help to lose the rest of my weight. I saw an ad for that new ChaLean Extreme program, and the secret to this is heavy weights less reps. Hey, I love her TJ series, have alot of those that I still do, but just cardio and walking was doing a great job, keeping me from gaining, but I couldn't lose those extra pounds, and so far so good. Also I'm taking a closer look at my sodium intake, I can not believe how much salt in in just about everything. One big eye opener for me was FF/SF pudding has 480mg of sodium, I would usually have 2 per day, I did see that cooked FF/SF has 110mg of sodium. Still a bit high, but I will try to see if I make homemade pudding this way I can really reduce the sodium.
Well have a great Friday everyone
Last edited by Institches21; 10-16-2009 at 02:10 AM.
Yippee a few nights off. All kinds of things I need/want to do. The weather is supposed to be a little cooler the next few days. That is a welcome change from the heat/humidity.
Finally getting a chance to do the personals
Lynn ~ Enjoyed hearig about your trip. That was neat - the gift your daughter made for you - pics of your cats.
Donna ~ Welcome ~ glad you got your tracker thing to finally work
Freda ~ I think I'd rather have the snow ~ sleet and freezing rain ~ I dreaded driving on that
Bobbi ~ your pudding recipe sounds delicious. Snow up by you ~ I miss looking at it, but not shoveling it.
Isabella ~ cross country skiing sounds fun
Karen (Missouri) ~ How are you doing? Have you had a chance to use your woman cave
Karen (Florida) ~ Congratulations on your anniversary
Zoe ~ Hope your cold/allergies are better. Your grandbabies are so cute
Phylis ~ Congratulations you your weight loss ~ glad to see you here again.
Rosey ~ your fish recipe sounds yummy ~ gonna have to try that
MBN ~ congratulations to you and your exercise partner ~ way to go
Africanaussie and Doris ~ Welcome ~ glad you found us ~ you'll like it here
Linda ~ those Renaissance Faires are fun ~ and a good way to get in some walking
Wilma ~ Hope your plateau has ended
Lynn, MBN and Freda ~ You say that you like the way the exercise makes you feel. How does it make you feel? Just curious. I have heard that it is supposed to make you feel good, help you not to feel depressed, energize you. I have never felt any of these things with exercising. Am I doing something wrong not to experience that?
Well, guess I'd better be getting off to bed if I don't want to sleep too late to late in the morning.
Lynn, MBN and Freda ~ You say that you like the way the exercise makes you feel. How does it make you feel? Just curious. I have heard that it is supposed to make you feel good, help you not to feel depressed, energize you. I have never felt any of these things with exercising. Am I doing something wrong not to experience that?
Glynne - Most of the time, I finish an exercise session feeling happy and optimistic, pleasantly tired and sweaty, and energized at the same time. It rev's me up and makes me feel that all is right with the world. I still have my days when I don't want to get up and get going, and it's just hard, but I know when I finish, I always feel better than when I started.
I didn't always feel that way, though. At first, exercise was just a chore and I was glad to be done. Now, I've come to associate exertion with positive feelings, so I LIKE the the feeling of pushing my muscles hard, getting sweaty and getting my heart rate up. It's still hard, because I always want to do my best, but it's hard in a good way, not hard in a "good grief how much longer do I have to do this" way.
I think it takes a while to get over that hump to begin to enjoy the process of exercise. Maybe it's that you have to get to a certain baseline of fitness first so that the act of exercise doesn't feel so foreign and stressful. It's like being a kid again in a way .. when children run and play they aren't thinking about the exertion, they are thinking about the wind in their face, and their friends, and the fun. For me it's not work, it's play. But, part of the secret is also picking exercise modes that I really enjoy doing, and not getting stuck in a rut of, say, 30 minutes on the elliptical every single day. I would hate that - can you say: boring! So I run with my friends, go to a lot of different group exercise classes, kayak with my husband, and hike on vacation.
Good Morning Again, Isabella...I pulled your trick and lost my long messge This one will be shorter as I've run out of time, Good Morning America just had a segment on this great weight lost plan called the 'Cookie Diet'. You eat 1000 calores of food and up to 6 cookies a day. Special cookies with who knows what in them,? Doesn't sound like anything I'd invest in. Lots of good exersizing hints the last two days. Yesterday I started feeling guilty about my short exersize program. Last Fall when I met my goal, I stopped most of my exersizing due to sheer laziness. I started back on them when my weight went up but not all of them. Yesterday I added my push-ups on the dresser that I use to do. Today I can't even lift a teaspoon, ouch! The front of my shoulders by my arm pits hurt, guess I'll lay off that today. Or should I push through the pain? What do you all do when you have sore muscles? DH and I used to walk but I have heel spurs and Plantar Fasciitis so walking is out. We live out in the country and our road is all gravel which makes it hard even if you don't have foot problems. I used to use weights in the morning but find exercising bands work just as well and I keep them at my computer desk and use them throughout the day. Especially when programs are slow loading. I'm going to post a couple of recipes quick for sugar free pudding. Homemade Vanilla Pudding 2 cups skim milk 1/2 cup Splenda 3 Tablespoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I put more in) 1 Tablespoon butter (I leave this out) (add one serving of raisins when cooking the mixture if you want raisin pudding, plus a dash of nutmeg) Put all dry ingredients into a medium saucepan, whisk in milk. cook over medium heat, heat until bubbles form at edges. Continue to cook and stir until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a metal sppon. Do not boil, remove form heat, stir in vanilla and butter. Pour into serving dishes. Hasty Chocolate Pudding 1/2 cup sugar or splenda 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 3 Tablespoons cornstarch 2 cups skim milk 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/8 teaspoon salt (I add cinnamon sometimes for a Mexican chocolate pudding) Whisk sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Put in Microwave bowl and gradually whisk in milk. Cook for 3 minutes on high. Stir, then cook at 1 minute intervals, stirring between cooking times for 2 to 4 minutes more. should be shiny and thick. Stir in vanilla. Place in individual serving bowl and cover or put plastic wrap over top to prevent skin from forming.
Lynn, MBN and Freda ~ You say that you like the way the exercise makes you feel. How does it make you feel? Just curious. I have heard that it is supposed to make you feel good, help you not to feel depressed, energize you. I have never felt any of these things with exercising. Am I doing something wrong not to experience that?Take care
OK - I'm not the best at understanding feelings, but I'll give it a try. First, it makes me feel "proud" - a kind of patting myself on the back about doing something good.
Next, it makes me feel committed - I am MUCH less likely to make bad eating choices if I have spent the first hour of my day exercising.
Also, it enables me to eat more & still lose weight. Without exercise, I can eat only about 900 calories if I want to lose. With exercise, I can eat around 1200 & still lose.
For me, it is a pleasant part of my day - I wake up, feed the cats, get dressed, stop at the convenience store for my coffee and protein bar (eat/drink on the way to the gym), and watch my morning news shows while I exercise. It has become such a habit that I miss it if I don't do it.
Then, there are the outcomes - I have arthritis & on days that I do not exercise, I have more aches and pains. I have diabetes & on days that I do not exercise, I have higher blood sugar readings. Finally, I have high cholesterol. Before I started exercising, the meds could not bring it down to where my cardiologist wanted. Now, it is perfect.
Finally, I REALLY like charting it in my daily nutrition/calorie/exercise tracker (I use DietPower).
Hello Gals. Another lovely fall day here in Central Newfoundland. I walked later this morning and it was a bit warmer than yesterday's early walk. Such a nice walk. Met and talked with several people and met the pre-schoolers out for a walk and chatted with them for a few minutes. They remembered me from a couple of weeks ago when I ran into them out walking. The loons were out on the bay and the wind wasn't blowing hard. So all in all a nice walk.
Bobbi!!! I think I have that recipe for the cookie diet. It's somewhere in a bunch of clipped recipes. It's supposed to be a high fiber chocolate cookie. It's a take off on the commercial cookies. I don't even think I was clipping that recipe but it was on the back of something else I wanted. I think it was in a Women's Day magazine. At least the cookies looked like cookies and not like the "Bowel Buddies" cookies I've seen in the health food store. I'd rather eat 6 cookies worth of food and save my dessert for the weekend. Oh, and about your sore arms--give them a rest today and do it again tomorrow. You have to give the muscles time to heal in between the exercise. I've got to start doing my push-ups again. But I think I'll ease into them as I don't do the pain thing too well.
Jess, if you really only lost an ounce a day you will be at goal in 3.25 years. Now, that's not as bad as you thought. Hardly a very old lady by then. One pound a week is a good amount to aim for but there will be weeks when it will be more and some weeks when there won't be any losses at all. So hang in there, lady.
Institches, I left a recipe over in the Blue Team but I see Bobbi has posted a couple which are almost identical to the one I have. It's really hard not to eat sodium as it's naturally in foods not to mention what's added to processed food. My, it seems as if salt is the only seasoning in some foods.
Lynn and MBN, sounds like you have your exercise routine down to a science. I almost gave up all exercise while preparing for DS's wedding the spring and summer. I just started walking again in September and I'm just loving. The days that aren't suitable for walking I bike in front of the TV. I was doing a home circuit with cardio and weight bearing exercises alternating but I haven't gotten back to that. But I'm guessing on cold, blustery winter days the circuit routine will be added to my regime.
Freda, when I was still working I always used the school gym or halls after school to do my walking and running in the winter. The kids who stayed after school for extra curricular activities were always interested in what I was doing. And the teachers were always saying they were going to join me. Ha! That never happened.
Glynne, hope you're enjoying your few nights off. I'm sure you will find some exercise to fit your life style. Half the battle is starting. I find if I leave walking or biking until after supper it doesn't get done. For me I have to do it in the morning when I'm better rested.
Must go and make that carrot cake for tomorrow's dessert treat. It's a small one that bakes in a 8 or 9-inch pan. So not so many left-overs to tempt me later on.
Good morning from beautiful Denver... Thanks for those pudding recipes! I forwarded them on to a friend who's on this "journey" with me. I think I need to keep my weird sense of humor to myself; y'all take my words so seriously! Lynn, I'm very limited on the carbs, of course. I'm trying to do the meal/snack/meal/snack/meal/snack routine, and that does work; when I veer off, I have no results. I prepare menus in advance and prepare them in advance, so I always have good food available when I'm starving. Exercise, not so much (well, not at all). It really, really hurts. I get shin splints almost immediately, and I'm too fluffy to bend and such for floor exercises. I keep waiting for some of this to drop off so that I can start walking. Any ideas for sedendary exercise? I'm very open to ideas!
Jess, you said you were waiting to lose a bit of weight before you started exercising but couldn't you take a short walk to begin, say around the block or up and down the street or even round and round the house and work up from that? Exercise really revs up the weight loss. I know shin splints really hurt so I understand your hesitancy to bring back that pain. I just found this web page that might give you a few ideas for chair exercises.
Good morning from beautiful Denver... Thanks for those pudding recipes! I forwarded them on to a friend who's on this "journey" with me. I think I need to keep my weird sense of humor to myself; y'all take my words so seriously! Lynn, I'm very limited on the carbs, of course. I'm trying to do the meal/snack/meal/snack/meal/snack routine, and that does work; when I veer off, I have no results. I prepare menus in advance and prepare them in advance, so I always have good food available when I'm starving. Exercise, not so much (well, not at all). It really, really hurts. I get shin splints almost immediately, and I'm too fluffy to bend and such for floor exercises. I keep waiting for some of this to drop off so that I can start walking. Any ideas for sedendary exercise? I'm very open to ideas!
Hi Jess,
When I had my hip problems (ultimately had hip surgery) and could not walk, I used to have weights that I could put around my wrists and or ankles. I would keep them by my tv watching chair & every time a commercial came on, I would lift my arms and/or legs with the weights. My weight things have little pockets that you can fill with metal weights - got them at a sports store - so I could increase the weight over time.
