Exercise, what does it do for you, Me?

Ten years ago, as a way to deal with the mess of a divorce, I started to work out in a gym. Due to back pain, I only used machines that worked my large leg muscles. The workouts did help me sleep at night, although you have to wonder why someone would go through all this effort, just to sleep.

I started with a regimen of 10 to 30 minutes of exercise. I used the rowing machine, the stair machine and the recumbent exercise bike. I spent 4 months, at 3 days a week, 30 minutes exercise, and never lost a pound. I then increased the time to 60 minutes per exercise time and remained at 3 days per week. Thirty days later, I lost about 10 lbs. The next month was modest and thereafter, I slowly dropped about 2.5 lbs per month and kept losing until I reached 193 lbs. I remember this, because since I had been about 10 years old, I had never weighed this much.

When you exercise for 60 minutes at a time, you really get to a point where you are exhausted when you are done. It takes a lot of discipline, to go past the 30 minute line and as I approached 45 minutes, there is a real problem with hitting the wall. When I could hold it together, I would get an endorphin hit, as the body kept going.
During what I called the run-out time, my body started to re-group, to slow down the heart from near max rate.

For the last 4 years, over time, I have kept up my exercise only to keep me mobile. When done, I am loose and feel good, but the back however feels like crap and if I concentrate on it, the pain has increased to a point where I am almost physically ill. For those of you, who understand the pain scale, it tops 8 to 9 when finished. Even with the pain, and "Yes" it interferes a lot.

I see my heart rate dropping with the same exercise time each week. Over time, I know that I am stress hardening my body to sustain effort and this in fact makes my daily life easier because I never work this hard at anything, so I have reserves built up.

Another benefit of exercise is that I get to eat whatever I want and still lose about a pound a week right now. Truth be know is that I don't eat everything I want, I am quite satisfied with enjoying smaller meals with less fat in them.

And for the record, the high fat meals do not taste like much once you have gotten away from them for awhile. You can taste the blandness of the fat. Meat that has no taste to it. Potatoes that need all kinds of condiments to make them tasty. Today, I just finished, this morning, my ritual exercise on the bike for 25 minutes, not for anyone else's benefit, just for me.

Heart rate hits 140, feels good. A little tired when I finished, soaked my T-shirt but I felt really good. If you have never done this before, give it a try, but give it about 3 occasions before you decide to stop this-- forever. It can feel like torture to someone who has never tried exercise. Oh and I remember that when I started, I only worked out for 10 minutes, once a day, three times a week for 3 months before I began to ramp things up. You must know, that you cannot go 0 to 60, in a week.

UPDATE - as of today, I have officially dropped to just 200. With this in my reach, I now am looking at 195 as the next step. So we'll see! My weight has fluctuated between 274 and this, since my teens. It was always stable, but climbing during my 20's and 30's. At 38, I began the first real assault on this and this time, I have just tweaked the weight off, a couple pounds during the month. Very slowly and this allows for me to get a real "Feel" for how it feels to be this weight. When I gain a pound now, I feel the weight and want to lose it, to get back to my equilibrium again. Just my thoughts about this.

[BTW - see a Doctor before trying any exercise program - this works for me and you are not me, so get checked and use a physiotherapist to ensure you are doing it right and not going to hurt you. Mileage claims vary depending how you drive!

Cheers -David