Sheila, welcome back! You've been an inspiration to me, you've done so well with your weight loss, so it's great to have you back.

It sounds like you have really have been a great influence on your family. Everywhere you go, they start losing! As far as your knees, I don't have any words of wisdom for you.

I hope things work out with your mom. Does she track her eating in Fitday or some other type of thing? What I do with another person on the board is that every day, we e-mail each other and say, "I made my calorie goal today" or "I didn't". We don't have to tell each other how many calories we've eaten, just if we made our goal. That is helpful, already several times it has stopped me from eating bad things. Just a thought?

Thanks so much for the support guys...To tell you the truth, there are days I feel like just a long walk instead of running, but now that I can run like I do...I feel NOTHING from a power walk...and I mean nothing. My heart rate doesn't go anywhere and it gets me down. After a long run I feel energized and like I worked my body and did something! After a walk I feel like "I just spent an hour doing nothing for my body". I know it's wrong. Anything that involves moving is good for the body. I was soooo excited to go to the gym this morning. I was bookin it at 9.5 mph on the eliptical and I was drenched!! I felt AWESOME! Then I lifted some weights and talked to some old friends there. It was lovely.

I promise I will start mixing up my routine...maybe only run 3 times a week? We'll see how that helps and I'll get the ice in mind. I totally didn't know that heat before and ice after thing. Go figure! Maybe I should use some heat before running?

I think one of the things that has helped me is at my job we have a break every two hours....so I pack something to eat for EVERY break. I find this helps my energy level and helps me to get motivated for my workout after work. I usually take....

-roast beef and turkey sandwich on light bread with lettuce and onion and dijon mustard and 1 serving of pretzels with laughing cow cheese (this would be lunch) OR 1 full can of progresso 100 calorie per serving soups with baked potato on the side and 1 cup of peas. OR a big salad with tuna or chicken and lowfat ranch. (can't seem to eat the FF stuff anymore)

-Variety of snacks include but are not limited to: Lowfat cottage cheese with peaches/rasberry preserves/pineapple; 2 cups of carrots; 2 cups of grapes, RF Wheat Thins, 90 calorie rice crispie treat, 100 calorie packs of anything, 100 calorie yoplait yogurt, turkey jerky

There are a lot of other things I take with me....some of them are more or less because I get a sweet tooth and there are 6, yes, count SIX vending machines in the breakroom and I want to raid them EVERY single day!! It's awful, but I'm learning to resist temptation.

I've been trying to pick snacks that are higher in protein because I've not been getting the 100 grams that I"m used to. Using Fitday made it a lot easier, but my connection is so slow up there that it's almost not worth getting on the net. I know, I know, I can download it. I'm just lazy I guess.

Great job Sheila! Way to take control!

Hey! Actually, the best thing is just to warm up with some sort of easy exercise before running. Even brisk walking would be good. The heat would be good if you're particularly achey... but if you are, you probably shouldn't be running. After running ice packs would really be the thing--and for the rest of the day or evening if you're feeling it.

The best thing would be to ask your doctor or another health care provider what you should do!

Jay

the surgeon tells me not to run until I get some weight off. Uhhhhhh..DUH! How do you think weight comes off???

I know...there are other things I can do...atm I can't afford a membership at the gym up there and I can't do tapes...I have no coordination. So I run... I've started to run on the dirt roads and find that they are more gracious to my knees than assphault.

My surgeon is impressed with the weight I've lost though and told me I look great. Made me feel wonderful. I know you're all gonna tell me not to run if I was told not to, but I think I"ll just tone it down a bit and see how that works for me and I"ll use the ice pack afterwards.

THanks for the advice...as always.

Jay

Sheila there are LOTS of ways for weight to come off, WITH listening to your Dr.'s advice and therefore WITHOUT running. And you don't need a gym. I've lost all my weight without running and without a gym. By all means exercise, but it doesn't HAVE to be running.

My main exercise is walking. As far as tapes go, Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds is EXCELLENT, ZERO coordination required.

Although exercise is a huge part of weight loss, and definitely vital, restricting calories is thee most important aspect. No knee strain involved.

Be kind to yourself, girlfriend. LISTEN to your doc, AND your own body. It's clearly trying to tell you something. Don't wait til it has to SCREAM it at you and knock you over the head with it.

I know how foolish I sounded when I said I run even though my surgeon tells me not to....but a surgeon *mine in particular* tells all overweight people they shouldn't run...he told my mom and dad that too when they had their knee surgery. He thinks that overweight people put too much pressure on their knees...and I can understand from his standpoint why he would say it. Obviously he sees a lot of patients that are overweight and need surgery. That's a given.

But I also see it in that we know our bodies and as long as we listen to our bodies (which I will try harder to do) we can do great things. I watch TBL all the time and those people weigh a **** of a lot more than me and they have them running. And most of those people have never done something like that...to think of the strain that is on their joints when their muscles around their joints aren't built up enough. But they still have them doing that. My personal trainer still had me running even though he knew I had knee surgery.

So I guess everyone would have their own opinion. As I stated before...I feel nothing from walking and for me...exercise is for my mental well-being as well as physical. If I"m feeling it...I feel awesome and feel like I could move mountains and am not stressed out. I know...I started out where walking made me sweat and lose weight, but now, nothin.

Hmmmmm...*shrugs* My regular doctor told me my leg muscles are huge and that it's good for my joints to have muscle built up like that. She tends to think my running is fine.

Hey again,

Keep in mind that TBL is an entertainment show, so not everything may be as it seems. Also, the participants are under medical supervision and have been thoroughly checked out. You can be sure that they wouldn't take someone who had knee problems already and was facing surgery, and make them run. The last thing the producers would want is to have someone crippled from participating in the program.

You could ask your surgeon what would happen if you run anyway, even though you've been told not to. There may be consequences you don't know about.

I'm not sure how well you are listening to your body. Your knees are hurting--doesn't that tell you something? Like you should take it easy?

I would guess that you haven't told your regular doctor that you're running 6 days a week and that your knees hurt. She might not feel the same if she knew that. You could ask her and find out.

As rockinrobin said, it's not necessary to run in order to get enough activity in.

Jay

Welcome back and congrats on staying on track. I am so jealous you're in Michigan. I lived in Ann Arbor from 98-04 and my entire life before that was in Farmington Hills. I miss it!!! I'm actually coming home for Thanksgiving, woo hoo! First time in over 2 years

If your knees are hurting, try walking a few days a week in between your rrunning days. I do 1 day of running then 1 day of walking, sometimes do 2 days run 1 day walk - just to keep the pain away! So you might want to try that. It's working for me. If I do 3+ days in a row, my body sure lets me know. Also getting a knee brace might be a good idea if you already have a knee issue. Good luck!

Sheila, from one young gal with severe knee problems to another, I sympathize! But as someone who has already been down the road you're going on (running despite having the knee issue and ignoring pain, which is your body's way of telling you to STOP), you are going to ultimately make the knee issue worse and harder to treat. Believe me, I am WELL aware of the frustration of being in pain and not being able to do the things you want to do, so I've had to focus myself on "the long term" - ie, if I go against my doc's wishes now, and run despite it not being allowed, in the long term I'll be making it harder to exercise for the REST OF MY LIFE. So for right now I'm limited. If you are pre-knee-replacement, you are limited right now. But far better to be limited now and able to do the things you want to be doing later than to push yourself to the point that you are restricted for the rest of your life.

If your knee is crunching, you might want to see if you can get a referral to physical therapy. They can help to strengthen the muscles in your legs so your knee gets less friction. It may also be that being overweight caused an alignment issue in your knee that causes it to crunch when you bend. If that is the case, doing running or other strenuous exercise, even if it is helping you lose weight, will only make the problem worse.

Why not try something, ANYTHING, that doesn't make that "crunch" sound in the knees or cause you pain? Your body is telling you with those signals that doing those things is probably not the best idea right now!

Hope your knees improve steadily and that you take care of yourself!

Sheila have you considered Nordic walking or some other type of walking style that has less impact on your knees, but still offers a good cardio blast?

http://www.coolwalking.com/styles.html describes some very interesting types of walking that should keep you burning calories, while saving your knees. It looks like fun