Hello!

[carolyn_claire]

Hi, I'm CC, and I need to start completely over, fitness-wise. I'm a married empty-nester approaching 50 and am learning to live and cope with Fibro and heart disease. At one time I walked 4-5 miles per day, but I don't walk at all, now, thanks to my health issues and my difficulty with grasping that I really do need to start out in 10-15 min intervals and work up from there (I always try to do too much, when I try to get active, and end up hurting myself and scuttling my program.) Remembering to stop before it feels like I need to is another challenge, regardless of how long I've been active. So my challenges are patience and perseverance, along with my physical issues.

I used to enjoy Hatha yoga, years ago, and am very bendy (hypermobile.) I need to work on developing muscle to support my painful, over-bendy joints if I'm going to take up yoga again, which I want to do. I know very little about strength training, especially for people with my sorts of physical issues, so any suggestions about possible programs would be much appreciated. My doctor has recommended Tai Chi, and I have a DVD I want to start working with, though I hear that learning in a class environment would be better (not something I have access to in my very small town.)

I'm also overweight and am working to reduce, for my heart's sake--carrying the equivalent of a small child around with me all day is hard on the poor old thing. I am losing weight, slowly, which is the way I prefer to do it, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to increase my exercise time as my weight decreases, also. I had a target weight in mind that I thought I would try to reach before starting, but, if I really am careful with my times and listening to my body, I can start gentle, daily movement again now (and my doctor wants me to, so there's no danger, there.) So, I'm probably waaaaay lower on the fitness curve than most here, but if anyone else shares the disability boat with me, we can encourage each other from near the starting line, maybe. :)

Comments

[green]

I'm losing weight, too. I was eighty pounds over my goal weight and slowly slowly lost 30 of that, and now I'm working on the last 50. I've just started exercising in the last week, though. I have never exercised in my life before this.

I'm looking forward to cheering you on!

[carolyn_claire]

I'm right about where you are with the weight loss, though I'm creating smaller goals for myself and then re-evaluating where I think I want to end up as I go. I don't know, with my health issues, if I'm going to be able to reach and maintain what the charts say I should, so I'm trying to be both gently strict and firmly tolerant with myself, which can be a difficult line to walk. So it sounds like we're both starting out near the same place--we can be our own cheering section! :) *shakes pom-poms at you*

[green]

Yay!

[just_ann_now]

I never exercised, at all, until I was forty years old, and my mom sent me a pair of brand-new Rockport walking shoes that had been donated to her church thrift shop.

"Huh," I said to myself. "I could put those on, and take a walk around the neighborhood." So I did.

That was over sixteen years ago. I started small and worked up - three times a week, four, five; now I do some kind of exercise every day - the habit has grown, so most days it's not even a matter of thinking about the choice to exercise or not. But it's taken persistence, more than anything else, I think; baby steps, and patience, and not beating yourself up over things.

[carolyn_claire]

:) I love your reaction to the shoes. (I've contemplated those leg-toning sneakers, but the price makes me think, maybe not.) Sometimes it's something small, just like that, that lights a fire; it's keeping it going that I really need to work on. *sigh* It's not like it's going to get easier as I get older!