Exercising on a treadmill

brenten1

Hello everyone,

I have been trying to increase my stamina by walking on a treadmill at the local gym, but I'm not sure of how much is too much, when to add more time/speed, or whatnot. To begin with I have an unfounded mistrust of my heart. I've had two stress tests (2012 and 2013) which were perfect. I've been sedentary most of my life (computer tech and then computer games). At one point I weighed 317 lbs (around 2006-7). After loosing a few pounds since then, I made large changes to my diet in 2012 (dropped pop, almost all red meats, switched to water/tea/chicken) and lost about 50+ pounds. Currently I weigh about 256-257.

Right now I start the treadmill at 1.7/1.8 speed with 1.0 incline for about 3 minutes then do 2.1 speed for about 22-23 minutes, 1.8 speed for 3 minutes, 1.5 speed for 2-3 minutes, then done.

I end up with about 1 mile over 30 minutes. Is that a reasonable warm up / work out / cool down? How do I know when to add more? What is too much?

Having had anxiety/panic attacks in the past, any time my heart rate begins beating really fast it scares the life out of me just about. I've worked through a lot of this but my unfounded paranoia regarding my heart (due to poor eating choices, sedentary life style, and the media branding everyone obese as 'the walking dead').

I have noticed that doing the same sort of exercise at 2.2 speed caused a heart rate spike for about a minute or so up to about 140 then back down to 117-120ish. That would occur about the 18-19 minute mark. Friends have told me this is normal, it's the body's response to extinguished energy stores and having to switch into fat burning mode. My doctor, several years ago, said this occurs due to prolonged effort and the heart needing to 'catch up' to the continued demand due to the exercise (basically the same thing).

When I tried it at 2.3 speed (back in the beginning about 6 weeks ago) I got a spike in heart rate around 17 minutes in. Lasted a minute or less then back to 117-120'ish. Around the 26 minute mark I got another spike that went up to 160s but stayed there, even after slowing down to 1.2 my HR didn't slow down much. After a couple minutes of sitting it was right back down to resting. The personal trainer felt this was normal and most likely psychosomatic. I do have anxiety issues as mentioned (hence believing every little ache is a heart attack).