Thank you, Brenda. It's important for me to note that before I made the decision to take my life back, I hated exercise. I mean LOATHED it. I would never sign up for an aerobics class and when people would suggest I should go for a walk for exercise I wanted to scream. If I was going to walk, it had to be for a reason and there had to be a destination that meant something to me. I also hated hiking because it didn't seem to produce anything of Interest.
Not moving is not normal for people. Watch her children play. As soon as they can walk, they start running. Then they run all day. And they invent games that include running. They are constantly moving until the sun goes down and you call them into the house for dinner. And they still want to move after that. Kids get signed up for teams to play hockey soccer basketball baseball football and they go gladly and they make every practice. And every time they do it it involves more running and walking than an adult would do in a whole day.
My culture ruined motion for me. They started in the fifties and sixties with Jack LaLanne on TV for the ladies who were home with kids doing housework. Suddenly it was required to do some sort of exercise if you were home. And PE or physical Ed became required in schools. But mostly, in my time, jogging became a fad and then it became a commandment.
I couldn't lose weight or exercise until it was my decision to do it. I had a complete mental block against doing anything society required me to do or anything that was popular to do. I am a rebel, not a joiner. I hate being told what to do. But I will climb a mountain if it's my decision to do it.
It was only after I claimed hiking and walking and losing weight and swimming for myself that I was able to enjoy all those things and love being active. These days I speak about hiking and canoeing as necessities, to the point where if I can't do it because my knee is wrecked or my shoulder is bad, I will have surgery and joint replacement and do that physical therapy so I can go and hike and canoe. I have said to more than one doctor that life is not worth living if I can't be on a mountain at least once a year. And in truth I usually am on a mountain half a dozen times a year. I plan to continue to do so until I can't walk anymore.
If people are feeling some kind of mental block against exercise or simply cannot motivate themselves to exercise, I understand that, at least from my point of view. There is so much we are required to do because we are gastric bypass patients. There are so many restrictions, but walking and hiking and riding a bike and camping and rowing a boat are all things that contain adventure. They are independent. Don't ever do them because you are required to. Do it for fun and because you want to. If that doesn't get you up and moving, maybe nothing will. But if any part of your motivation includes wanting to enjoy the look and feel of a muscular body, a fit body and a sense of achievement as you venture into places where other people are not strong enough to get to, you will succeed at increasing your mobility.
This may be a radical statement but you don't have to exercise at all in order to lose weight. Exercising will simply help you to lose weight faster. Exercise is not for weight loss but for toning your body, strengthening your heart, increasing the efficiency of your lungs, making the blood flow better through your veins and arteries, and perking up your brain.
I actually loaded up my backpack with 50 to 70 lb of gear and provisions before I got on the treadmill and what those eight miles completely loaded. Then because I live in Seattle, I just took the bus downtown with my backpack on and I walked from the Waterfront up the steep hills to the heart of downtown. Then I went back down, and I walked back up again. It was killer. But that was how I trained for hiking before I lost all the weight.
Here I am, so sweaty, at the YMCA:
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