I found out quick that doing an hour straight of exercise just wasn't going to cut it for my body starting out and I had to break my hour down and do it on and off again through out the day.

I've been doing that for the past two days and it has helped a lot with my motivation to do it, because I exercise for a while at that 'burn' but stop when it gets painful. I think it helped most because now I'm not associating my workouts with 'oh, this is gonna be terrible and I'll hurt all over, blah blah blah' excuses. Now I can just be happy I'm burning calories!

Did any of you have to do the same thing at first?

I didn't do it at first...I started lower, with 15 or 20 minutes, and built up my tolerance 'til I was doing more.

Later on, when my workouts got tedious and boring, I'd break them into segments...10 or 15 minutes at a time. That eventually passed and now it's just something I "do," like showering or brushing my teeth....may not always FEEL like doing this one, but it gets done.

I'm hoping to go back into longer sessions when it doesn't become painful to do it all at once. It's nice to know someone did something similar, even if for different reasons.

And congrats on meeting your goal, your before and after pictures really show it!