hi everyone, i'm new here and wanted to say hello. i started yesterday with bouncing on a 3 by 5 meter square trampoline. i did it again this morning for a full hour.

i want to do it 5 or 6 times a week but it is at an acrobatics school kind of far away and at inconvenient times, but not too inconvenient not to do it. I wish i could have this in my house. the best part is that it is cheap and i get it all to myself for 2 hours, plus a killer massage and backcracking afterwards! oh and supposedly it's the best thing for cellulite and lymphatic dranage.

i had thyroid cancer, had a thryoidectomy, and now they are trying to find the right hormone dose. it's tough. i've gained a lot of weight. i want to lose at least fifty pounds! The trampolining really gets the heart rate up. i wore a polar heart meter and i got up to 190! it's actually too easy to go higer than the recommended range, just by bouncing simply (great fun), i'm between 140 and 160 beats per minute (more with flips etc). you can always relax and get the beats to where they need to be.

also, i'm a vegetarian and try to eat all organic. i love yoga, pilates, bike riding and cooking. if anyone wants a buddy, please write! I look forward to sharing success with others, especially vegetarians and fellow bouncers!

thanks,
weightless

5'9" female 26 years old
210 / 200 / anywhere between 130 and 165, we will see. i have been happy at 165 but it would be nice to see what a lot less looks like! actually at 160 people tell me i look too thin and sickly, which is bizarre. i have a lot of muscle.

Hi weightless! Welcome. I tried a big trampoline once and it was wonderful. I loved the way I had to rotate my arms to keep my balance and went higher and higher...very different from the small one I have at home, when you focus on bouncing downward instead.

It is wonderful that you are trying to do good things for yourself. Sounds like you have your priorities right. I had breast cancer 5 years ago and it took me a while to get into a healthy routine, but now that (mosttimes) I exercise faithfully and try to watch what I eat, I feel so much better about myself and about life.

190 bpm sounds really high to me, but then I am over 30 years older than you, and my top limit is supposed to be around 146. Good luck with everything...and continue with the massages and backcracking, they sound wonderful!

Artmaker

hi there! i was looking for a place to ask this question. i saw and infomercial for something called "urban rebounding". it was a mini trampoline and came with a few tapes, but there are like 30 different tapes you can order with different types of music and bouncing. ex....hip-hop, ballet, salsa.... it looked like a lot of fun. has anyone heard or tried this???

thanks
kathy

hi artmaker and corningkat!

artmaker - sorry to hear about the cancer, but it sounds that you are well on the right track by now!

corningkat - I have heard of that series but don't use any videos myself. I LOVE rebounding.

I just wanted to update everyone. I have some good news - so far I've lost 17 pounds in about 6 weeks. My cellulite is almost gone (this is from the trampolining and its lymphatic cleansing action, I'm pretty sure!) and I am feeling a lot happier.

But the best news is that I went to a natural eye doctor yesterday and he tested my vision. I've been trying on my own (but in a very inconsistent and undisciplined way) to improve my eyesight. I do exercises for the eyes very infrequently but I stopped wearing my glasses and contact lenses every day several months ago. The great news is that I used to be nearsighted with a prescription of 2.25 in one eye and 2.5 in the other. I now have less than 1 in each eye! I was able to see the smallest letters on the eye chart for the first time EVER in my life (I started wearing glasses when I was 6).

My new eye doctor is going to give me a series of exercises to do for 15 minutes a day and he said that I should be 20/20 in 4 to 6 weeks. I NEVER thought this would happen! A life without contact lenses or glasses! The LASIK surgery is too dangerous, especially for people of my age. I was told by opthamology students at my university (when I asked why they were all wearing glasses, which they had to buy, when they could get LASIK surgery free) that because eyesight gets worse after hitting about 40 years old, operating at our age would just set us up for more, perhaps irreversible problems down the road. I was about to do LASIK so thank god they told me!

anyway, good luck to everybody and I'll come back and post more good news as and when! The eye thing is relevant because trampolining has also been shown to improve eyesight! In my case it wasn't the most important factor though because I recently started rebounding and my eyesight has been improving over the last few months.

- weightless

wow...are you guys serious? jumping on a trampoline helps you lose weight? I have a bigger one that my dad got me and my sister one year....so how long do u jump a day?

hi soccerchick -

yeah, it's the best thing i've found, and i've tried it all. you just do it for the same amount of time you do any exercise. i aim for 30-60 minutes. a heartrate monitor is good to use to be sure that you keep within the fat burning zone.

let me know how it goes for you....the big trampolines are the best. the best exercise for the whole body and so much fun!

- weightless

Hi Weightless, what brand of heart monitor do you use?

We bought something similar at Walmart, its a mini trampoline with a bar to hold on to, it comes w/an exercise tape. We didn't buy it to exercise we bought it so on the cold and rainy days, my 3 year old can get her energy out by using it.....and you know what...she does. She loves bouncing in front of the TV and the neet thing is, it has a bar for her to hold on to. Like I said we got it in Walmart and it was about $30. Well worth it even if its for the little one.

hi jennifer!

i use a polar heart rate monitor, the model number is S410. My mom got it for me, and it was VERY expensive (over 200 dollars!!!!!). If I were buying one myself, I'd get a cheaper one with only the stopwatch and beats per minute feature. The one I have can even communicate with your computer, comes with software and everything:

http://www.polar.fi/polar/channels/e...ning/S410.html

I don't use any of the fancy stuff, don't know if I ever will (a more hi-tech gadget doesn't necessarily translate into more pounds lost!). I've heard you can buy decent monitors for about 40 dollars...I'd save on the monitor and spend more on a good quality rebounder.

- weightless

Oooohweeeee! I didn't know they were that expensive. I think I saw your model in Sears yesterday. I was looking at the sale items, but nothing struck my fancy.

I'll look on ebay!