Thanks Shannan.
Today I went for my fitness assessment and it was not nearly as humiliating as I thought it would be - of course there were the muscle men, but only a few, but apparently you really need a testosterone shield if you visit between 5 and 7 pm - even the gym princess who inducted me confessed that she got intimidated by all the grunting!!!
They've designed a nice "program" for me that consists of a combination of cardio and weights and a little floor work. I'm going to try and do a few classes too. The friend that I've joined with is into the high impact stuff, but given my level of fitness I'm looking at the low impact stuff. I haven't tried yoga or pilates, can anyone tell me if i'm dreaming or whether these would suit without killing me!!!
The biggest danger in the program they've set me so far is the ball thing that you have to balance on to do sit up things...I have visions of a nasty gym incident involving me and an out of control ball!!! Well, practice makes perfect.

Ah -- the dreaded "fit assesment". I have those quite often. The BEST part is to see how much you've improved! Did they take your body measurements? That is one thing that got me over a hump a while back. I wasn't losing any lbs, but when I did the body measure, I saw how many inches I had lost, and it gave me a huge boost!
I've done both Pilates and Yoga. And I hope I say this without offending anyone, but yoga is a little goofie for me. I'm not very good at "breathing through my eyelids" or "visualizing my bones and muscles spreading to each side of my body." For the most part, it wasn't hard to too, but I kept giggling the entire time. Which is not good. Now, Pilates, I loved it. I actually worked up a sweat just by sitting down! I highly recommend it, as I'm looking for a class now. If you can get something through your gym, great, otherwise, it's pretty expensive to take classes. I've also joined a bowling league, which really does quite a bit for my arms and legs, plus much cheaper.

Unfortunatley, with all of that, and also being sick, I've plateau'ed for about 3 weeks. Any ideas to push over the hump??

Hey, I hadn't thought of bowling as a fitness/weight loss activity - it could be a good thing to do with my friends without feeling like we're "exercising" - making it a social occasion, rather than a fitness session. Cool idea, thanks. I'll have to be cautious at my local bowling alley because it is combined with a bar and i could easily undo any good work that I might achieve. I actually went back to the gym yesterday and did my "program" and today my abs are killing me. I didn't fall off anything (this is the gauge of the success of the session!!) so I guess it went well.
As for your plateau problems - 3 weeks is a little disheartening but given that you've lost 58 lbs so far, it's your body adjusting to a huge change...as for how to get it moving, have you tried increasing the intensity of your physical activity? For example if you're exercising at a level that's "comfortable" could you increase it to a level of slight discomfort - even in short bursts of intensity to begin with...maybe that will send the message to your body that you have no intention of stopping so it may as well give up holding onto those lbs! Don't lose hope, you've come to far to let it get you down!!!

Thanks for the feedback - Once I get back to fighting condition (this cold has me down pretty hard), I'll definatley try that. maybe jogging for a few minutes instead of walking the entire time. GOOD IDEA.
Bowling is a great idea, except, of course, the pitchers of beer and the food that is served there. But, the way I've approached it is, what my mom has always told me, If my all my friends would jump off a bridge (or drink beer) would I do it. It's actually been a good challenge. Everyone there is drinking and eating cheese sticks, cheeseburgers ect, and I have my liter of water, tuna packet and melba toast.
Kudo's on the workout - I can actually feel the pain in the abs too. The cool part comes in when you see a difference. Does your program have you doing lunges yet? They are a pain (literally) but make a big difference in the tooshie!! Enjoy your weekend!

I started WW today. My mom said that she would help me out so we joined together. Im really excited about it and I feel very confident. I was 288.6 lbs.