Hello,

I started working out vigorously about 5 months ago. Initially I did strength training exercises but also took to serious walking.

At first (5 month ago), there was considerable stiffness in my left knee on consistent walking but a friend assured that is because of sudden surge in blood supply to that area and just as she mentioned, the knee pain completely went away on persistent walking. Nowadays there is no more knee pain as much as I walk.

Now I started jogging (just started with 2 - 3 rounds around a nearby field for about 10 - 12 min) and I notice considerable stiffness in my left knee immediately following the jog. Has anyone noticed or had such results? Do you think this is cause for alarm, given I felt the same with walking earlier which went away completely?

Also as an aside, I want to ask this question - has any of you tried jogging predominantly for addressing belly fat issue and just how long did you have to jog (in days/months) before noticing reduced waistline and significant reduction in the belly fat?

Thanks.

Congrats on upping your exercise. I started jogging about 6 months ago. I would be worried about the knee pain. Make sure you have really good, supportive running shoes. Better shoes made a huge difference for me. Then consider starting slower. I started with just ten minutes and built up slowly. As to the belly fat, I sympathize. I feel like all my extra weight is at my waist. Sadly jogging hasn't made much difference in the belly yet. I guess that weight will be the last to go for me.

Thanks for the reply, Momma. Its disappointing to hear from you that jogging hasn't been too much help for the waistline issue, but I decided to be hopeful because this is the last thing I could really try! Yes, I'm starting very slow -- just jogged from corner to corner, then took a short break and resumed -- jog was full of stop and go's. This is the best I could do at the moment! But I am happy I'm atleast making some effort at last, hopefully in the right direction!!

Something that helped me ease up the pain of jogging was to not overextend my stride. Make short steps (kind of like a bouncy fast walk) and make sure your foot hits the ground under your knee (not projected forward). If you extend your foot out too far it will cause your knee to absorb the shock of running rather than your feet.

Thank you for the wonderful tip! Truly appreciate it.