(photo courtesy of Karolina Grabowska)

Does any obese person really like exercising several days a week? I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and say, “no, not really….” As for myself? I mostly have to force myself to do it, unless it’s a bike ride. Do we really need to do it? The answer is yes, because anything that gets us off the couch and moving is better for our bodies than us sitting there like a lump.

Unless you have a medically approved reason to sit on the couch all day, then I think it’s safe to say you need to get your ass in gear and move it at least a few times a week. If you’ve been putting it off, I’m now nagging you to do some form of exercise, for 30 minutes, at least two times a week.

My permanent residence is in the southern United States. The temperatures climb above 90F in May and don’t go below 90F until October. I was born and raised in the northeastern United States so I’m a delicate flower who hates extremely hot weather.

My husband, on the other hand, grew up a few miles from the equator, running around in the hot, humid jungle during the summer months of his childhood. Needless to say, we have very different definitions of ‘hot’ and ‘cold.’

Now that we are retired, we can escape to cooler climes in the hot summer months. However, with that comes a huge change in lifestyle. When we are at our home in the south, we belong to a gym, and I usually go there for strength training two to three times a week. Other times we ride bicycles once or twice a week. When the weather doesn’t allow, I ride the stationary bike at our gym on days when we would be cycling.

At our summer location, we are located near the Canadian border in a very small town with no gym, three miles up a dirt road, at the top of a hill. Cycling is only possible when we haul our bike(s) downhill to ride somewhere, which we did many times. I can, however, walk on the dirt road, which has one brutal climb and other ups and downs. Walking is very good exercise, and I should do it every day, but I get lazy, and we had an extraordinary amount of rain over the summer.

My point in telling you all this is that I did not notice a change in my weight loss pattern from what I was doing at my permanent home in the winter, to what I did at our summer location. I exercised far less regularly, and I’m sure I’ve lost some muscle, which could be a contributing factor, but I still lost one to two pounds a week while we were at our summer camp.

So, given this enlightening fact, why am I still pushing myself to exercise?

I watched my parents go to work, come home, sit in chairs and not do any kind of physical activity other than what happened in the normal course of their working and home lives. Both of them ended up with mobility issues in their elder years, my mom suffering through not one, but two broken hips, my dad having several small strokes, hypertension, and joint issues. Ultimately, both of my parents had to go into an assisted living situation.

Regular exercise was not something my parents did, unless you count dancing Saturday night at the Veterans’ club, which stopped when I became a teenager. My dad had a very physical job (carpentry) over the course of his life, but that did not keep him moving enough to ensure his mobility. As I have aged, I have noticed that I am less confident in my mobility and worry more about losing my balance. I do worry that I will fall and break something. This is really ridiculous because I get on a two-wheeled bicycle all the time without any worries about falling. I never worried about balance and mobility ten years ago.

I believe that the key to independent living in our elder years is mobility. You may be in your 20s or 30s, thinking that your elder years are way too far away to worry about now, but they are not. Everything we do today impacts our life in the future. So, I will be active, independent of my weight loss plan. I look at exercise as a plus.

One good reason for overweight people to lose excess weight is our knees. If you go back to my very first post,

Why Are You Overweight? (publish0x.com)

you will read that one of the reasons I started this weight loss journey was because of my knee pain.

Long-term obesity will likely impact your knees. I know, because I have arthritis in both knees from carrying too much weight for so many years. Luckily, I had one knee’s arthritis cleared out during meniscus surgery so that knee doesn't seem to give me many problems. 

However, my other knee can be painful at times. I can tell when it’s going to rain. And my knee will ache for no apparent reason. I could be lying in bed, not moving and suddenly it will begin to throb and sometimes I get a pain like I was stabbed in the knee.  I've had it evaluated so I know how much wear and tear it has been through.  

Sometimes I can’t find a position that while lying in bed that will ease it. When it was more painful, I tried medication, but it didn't t really help much. I’ve used ice, heat, topical creams, taken over the counter pain relievers and even tried a muscle gun. They all helped a little bit but it was only temporary. My knee isn't at the point for a knee replacement (and I don't want one at the moment).

So, if you are still young, think about taking care of your knees now so they will take care of you later.

My orthopedic doctor told me that losing one pound of body weight takes four pounds of pressure off your knees!

After losing this weight, my knees do feel better. The previous summer, I could not complete a grocery shopping trip without limping and leaning heavily on the grocery cart due to pain in my knee. Now, I can walk for a long time with no significant knee pain. Yes, it does ache here and there, but nowhere near as bad as it did when I was 60 pounds heavier.

I love that I can climb hills on my bicycle much easier than I could with additional 60 plus pounds on me. My husband is overjoyed as we ride a bicycle built for two as well as single recumbent bicycles. Losing that much weight on the bike helps us ride easier as a team. I can now walk up the killer hill on my road without having to stop to catch my breath. So, plenty of pluses for staying active while dieting.

Earlier this summer, we took our bike to a rail trail and rode for three hours, covering 34 miles. My cycling app told me I had burned 1600 calories. I never really take those calories burned estimates seriously, but even if it was off by 200-300 calories, that’s still 1300 calories I burned, which is almost one days' worth of calories.

Theoretically, I’d almost effectively doubled the number of calories I could consume on that day. When we do these rides, we normally look for a brewery or brew pub where my husband can reward himself with a tasty IPA draft beer and a burger. I grin and bear it on this diet but that time I went all in! Yep, I had the BBQ bourbon bacon burger, shared the sweet potato waffle fries with hubby, noshed on the potato chips on my plate, and washed it down with a tasty IPA. It was probably the most guilt free ‘cheat’ meal I’ve eaten since I started dieting. All because of exercise.

Are you going to exercise?

Let’s deal with the excuses:

“I work long hours….” No one said on their death bed “I wish I had worked more….”

“I’m not athletic...” Go for a walk! You know you can do that….

“The gym is expensive….” You have the internet, there are thousands of exercises you can find online to do at home. My favorite is turn on some music and dance for 30 minutes.

Have you run out of excuses yet? I hope so… because it’s time for you to get up and move.