I'm just really beginning to take it seriously. However, I know I won't be able to do it the rest of my life. Right now, I'm glad I'm not built like my mom. She always prided herself on being thin. She just couldn't understand why we (my 2 sibs and daddy) couldn't lose weight. To her, it was a matter of will power. Anyway, she's 89 and in extremely poor health. Osteoporosis has grabbed her and isn't letting go. She did walk quite a bit all of her life. Now she can barely move without extreme pain.

It's going to take quite a bit for me. This elbow pain is getting better. It's been since Sept and I'm going 2ce a week for therapy on it and it is helping. That limited me for a bit. Knee pain bothers me at times. Apparently that runs in our family. I'm sure taking a few hundred ounces off will make them happier. Plantar faciitis in both feet has really been a problem. I'm trying different shoes for different activities and it seems to help. There again, taking a few hundred ounces off should make them happier.

I'm just wondering what it will take to make some of you stop?

...why would you stop? I think, as we age (and at the age of 28, it may be cheeky for me to say something like that), the kind of exercise we do will change, but why stop entirely? My folks, both 60 this year, are avid bikers and walkers, and have recently taken up kayaking. My dad's always been super active but this is new for my mom. She started to worry that the heart disease that runs in her family would extend to her, so she got moving. She now routinely bikes up to 90 kms a day when they do big trips. She's also started a weights regime to build bone mass in an effort to try to avoid osteoporosis.

I hope that exercise - which, in my current lazy state, I can only bring myself to do a couple times a week right now - will always be in my life, in some form. I don't think I'll be running 10k races when I'm 80, but I hope I'll still be able to get around - walk my dog, play with grandkids, if I have them, etc. I hope nothing stops me. That may be wishful thinking

I'll stop on the day I die.

Injuries and aging simply mean you need to adapt your exercising, not stop.

I've never been much good at sitting still. So maybe right after they pry the diet coke outta my cold dead hand.

I already have waaaaay less creaks and crackles than I had a couple of years ago. I'm not doubting that I'll be even more fit in the future.

I will always remember a great banana commercial from a few years ago that had this beautiful 80-something year old woman that swims laps in the lake everyday. She's my role model. There was another one where an 80-something man was running hurdles. If they can do it so can we. OK, maybe not to that extent as everyones genetics are a bit different but what a great goal to have. I hope and plan to be exercising until the day I die!

Beth

I agree with everyone else -- I can't even imagine stopping. If something happened to my health and I couldn't move, I suppose I'd have to. But until that happens, I'll be doing some form of exercise until the day I die. It makes me feel too good to stop. Also, I really don't want to gain the weight back, and stopping exercising would be a surefire way to do that, so yeah...bad idea.

The problems you have with knee pain and plantar fasciitis (which I know is very painful) obviously make it more difficult, so I hope you can find something great and pain-free, something that you love so much you'll never even consider stopping.

I'll stop exercising the day I stop eating. So for all intents and purposes that would be a big fat never. G-d willing I will be able to exercise til the day I die. After going so many years with ZERO intentional exercise I never, ever again plan to be without exercise in my life, bad knees and all.

Susan I was thinking "the day they pry those running shoes from my cold dead..." But I think that has been taken.

I am totally the opposite of Susan I am inertia queen. Luckily I am compulsive and now that I am compulsive about exercise there is no stopping me.

I am actually sore from a new weight workout. I don't exercise everyday, but I can't see myself not doing it again.....does not compute...LOL. If I skip more than 2-3 days I start getting antsy.....Also no desire to give up all the good things that have happened and slide back into non movement....I will say at first it was a chore and I had to really push myself to do it, now I look forward to and get annoyed when I plan to workout and something interrupts the plan.

When I first started (not all that long ago) I had lots of knee pain and heel pain in my left foot. I bought 2 supposedly great pairs of sneaker and they just made it worse. I finally went to the runners store and got fitted with a truly great pair. Between losing some weight and working out consistently no more knee pain and only the occasional twinge in the heel.

There was a woman in my gym the other day that had to be in her 70's. At first she and her husband were just walking on the treadmill, which is about all I expected them to do. But then later I saw her doing the butt blaster (weight machine where you are on your hands and knees and lifting a weight by stretching your leg straight into the air behind you; yes, it is as hard as it sounds). She looked totally fragile but her she was doing the machine that, frankly, I try to avoid myself!

I expect that the type of exercise I do will change over time, but I don't have plans to stop exercising. I have said that when I hit 80, all bets are off. But I'm thinking more in terms of eating--when I hit 80, I'm eating whatever I want.

I know that when I first started exercising, I was really daunted by the idea of continuing to do it everyday for the rest of my life, and sometimes I still feel a little overwhelmed when I think about it that way. But as time has gone on and exercise has become more of a habit and less of a chore--and I've actually come to look forward to it sometimes--the thought of continuing to exercise for the rest of my life has seemed less impossible.

My DD's great grandmother (95) goes for walks, and also gets on that exercise thingy where you sit on the seat and pull the handles toward you while pushing out and forward on the foot pedals a couple times a week. She is so cool!

Tiki

My grandfather-in-law is 85 and walks at least a mile every day, even though he has extremely severe back pain. He and his wife also have a stationery bike they have used regularly (although I think he had to give up the bicycle recently because of the back pain).

My father-in-law has MS, severe PAD, has been wheelchair bound for about 10 years now, and had to have a leg amputated last year. He still lifts weights and until right before his amputation, was swimming weekly at a warm water pool. He can't get some of his medical equipment wet any more so he can't get in the water anymore, but he does what he can.

I'm not as dedicated as either one of them yet, but they're my role models. My father-in-law told me about the warm water pool, and I LOVE it. I love the water, and would swim three times a day, if I could. When I herniated a disc in my back about ten years ago, that's exactly what I did. The buoyancy of the water was the only thing that relieved the pain enough to allow me to go back to work, so I swam before work, on my lunch hour (luckily I had a flexible work schedule), and after work.

My dream is to have an endless pool (the water "treadmill" type narrow pool that allows you to swim in place) someday. However, since they run about $18,000, I'm not sure that's likely.

When I consider the athletes who complete marathons and other amazing endeavors lacking legs, arms, or who have other challenges, I know that (for me) aging will be no excuse. If an 80 year old can run a marathon, I can run three miles. If my joints crap out, then I will need to change what I do, but there are always always options.

I stole the cold dead hands thing from Maintainer's. We were talking about coffee one day.

I thought of you when I posted this thread. Somehow I picture the lid to your coffin bumping up and down because your spirit will be in there pumping iron.