Disabilities, weight loss, and exercise

Can you afford gym membership...the POOL would be a great thing for you! They have water resistant turtle pools in some. You have to believe in yourself or you will never loose...it takes time and consistancy for sure!

Wow, let me take a moment to applaud you for your determination and strength despite things. You don't have to go fast, as long as you go!

I'm not sure if I'd be of any help to you but if you'd like feel free to add me and I'd love to send some support your way on regular basis!
I am dealing with my own struggles right now even if they are in no way comparable to yours (digestive issues, sometimes severe abdominal pains, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, and at times extreme fatigue and dizziness which have all still remained unexplained) so I know in a way what it feels like to want to do/accomplish a lot, and yet your body sometimes inhibits you to do so.

Either way I'm wishing you the best on your journey!

The pool sounds like a wonderful option for you. Can you do a 30 minute walk 2-3 times a day? If you get consistent with your walking, maybe next month you can do 35 minute walks and so on. Losing weight will help all of your physical ailments. How about some yoga? It doesn't tend to burn a lot of calories but it could really benefit you.

As for the soda....it has to go. Calculate how many calories you are wasting on soda a day. Then figure out how many calories a week that is. Divide that number by 3500. Which would you rather have? The soda or the weight loss? Try replacing it with herbal teas (good especially if you live in a cold-weather area) or flavored water (Plain water would be best but I'm thinking that's not gonna appeal to you!) Mio flavorings are really good and you can use less and less of them as you adjust.

Push yourself as far as you can go without injury and do it every single day!!!! Try for multiple times a day! Keep your diet under control. Try a deficit of 10-20% to start. Don't go crazy and go super low calorie. Don't even go as low as 1500 calories per day if your body is used to 3000, for instance.

Congratulations! My brother-in-law has a similar back problem. His doctor/therapist/nutritionists all recommend working out in the pool to support his back and bicycling because it's easy on his knees and back. The pool is a gym thing but sometimes you can get a good deal or scholarship at a local school (even high school) or Y. We have public indoor pools in our area that are $10/month.

Hi Jen! Wow, I feel your pain, although obviously not literally. My mom has severe osteoarthritis (hip replacement that didn't help much, crooked spine with disk wear, problems in knees and shoulders) as well as possible rheumatoid arthritis. I have fibromyalgia - I've had it sixteen years, and I'm only 28 - and mild osteoarthritis in hands. We both have weight problems, at least in part due to not exercising enough.

The most important thing to keep in mind - at least what's most important to me - is that as you lose weight, you WILL feel better. Not totally better, maybe not even a lot better, but a bit. With any kind of condition where the joints and muscles are affected, carrying around extra weight puts on a whole lot more strain. The knowledge that my pains will ease as I lose weight (and even more as I tone muscle) is my greatest motivator, even when the exercise itself is painful.

That said, go slowly. Don't push yourself too far. It takes some experimentation (it took me years to find the balance between an amount and degree of exercise that improved things, and an amount that would send me to bed for a week - let's hope you learn faster than I do, lol) but you can find the right amount for you. If you've discovered that 30 minutes of walking is the point of no return, then try 20 or 25. And keep in mind that that point will not always be the same - as you get healthier you'll find you can do more. When you've been doing an exercise (eg walking) reasonably comfortably for a couple weeks, try increasing the time by five or ten minutes. If that causes a lot of problems, decrease it again.

Keep in mind that pain and harm are not the same thing. They often go together, but they're not necessarily the same. Harm is something that lasts a long time, pain is transient. Anyone who starts exercising after not doing anything for ages is going to find it painful, even if they're just walking slowly for ten minutes. Feeling the muscle burn for an hour or two doesn't mean that you've mucked up your body. Because of your conditions, you need to be careful about causing harm to yourself that will last for days or longer, but please don't let the initial temporary aches fool you into thinking that any exercise is going to damage your body. I see a lot of people (at disability organisations, or through my work) who are frightened to even walk to the mailbox or swim for a few minutes because they confuse the initial aches and pains with genuine damage to their bodies. They're not the same thing.

(This isn't aimed at you specifically. The fact that you're walking and coming on MFP is awesome, and shows that you probably don't need the above paragraph. It's more a general piece of advice / warning to anyone who needs it.)

Swimming is nice gentle exercise, if you have a community pool anywhere near you. If you don't, school pools often allow the public in before school or in the evenings. My mom says that for her hips and back, using a recumbent bike helps a lot - she says that the first five minutes are agony, and then suddenly everything seems to loosen up and feel better for a day or two. This may not help you, but it might be worth a try. With arthritis (and fibromyalgia) a lot of the challenge is getting past that initial stiffness.

Keep walking, and make sure you're using a good pair of walking / running shoes. I found walking horribly painful until I stopped doing it in flat shoes with no support. Now I wear Nikes (if I'm going to the gym or actually for a walk, not for all-day use) and it's totally changed my gait and improved the pain. If you don't have good shoes, go to a hiking store or sports store and get a trained fitter to help you. They don't have to cost a fortune, especially with the sales on.

If you like the bubbliness of soda, try juice mixed with sparkling water. I strongly suggest avoiding diet soda - and I know I may get slapped down for this; plenty of people swear by diet soda because of the lack of calories - because I don't trust artificial sweeteners. Studies have been done that say saccharin and aspartame are appetite stimulants. Other studies say there's no link. I didn't take part in any of these studies, and can't tell you which to trust - all I can say is that when I drink diet soda or use sweeteners in other products, I get food cravings, insomnia and general crabbiness. Stevia seems to be a good alternative to artificial sweeteners - you could even try putting a bit in sparkling water with a dash of lemon if you're wanting something sweet. Quitting a particular junk food (like soda) is tough. When you're observing the difference in how you feel before and after, don't judge it by the first few weeks - it takes a while for your body to acclimatise.

Good luck, keep moving, and don't get demoralised. Even a little bit of improvement in how you feel is still improvement.

Can you afford gym membership...the POOL would be a great thing for you! They have water resistant turtle pools in some. You have to believe in yourself or you will never loose...it takes time and consistancy for sure!

^^^^^^
THIS
I love swimming, and as far as disability goes, don't let it keep you from your optimal best.
Work around it.
I live with a terrible condition....resulting from an injury and lost 90 lbs and am able to do things they said I'd never do again: play tennis, box...ect....
Without all that extra weight, I found that I still have so much life left to live.
All Is Possible!

Hi Jen, I'm 44 and have two ruptured discs in my spine ...L4/5 and L5/S1. The degeneration has gotten bad enough that it shows major narrowing of the disc space on a normal Xray and osteoarthritis setting in in my spine.

I can completely understand what you are dealing with. Losing weight has been a major pain relief for me, I was lucky enough to be able to afford a few personal training sessions when I joined the gym and they really helped me find exercises I could cope with. Aqua aerobics was one thing that helped me get over the worst of the "just starting to exercise again" pain.

Having to take medication really messes with your appetite but one thing I have learned is that you HAVE to eat!
I found that when I eat regularly ( more like 6 snacks that full meals) I lost weight easier.

I still have days when eating anything is an effort and going to the gym seems just too hard but force myself and it's working so far.

We will never be pain free but I know my symptoms have lessened and I'm not relying on painkillers as much.

I joined a gym where I pay weekly, I have a membership so it is cheaper than casual rate but I am locked in to a years contract.

I have osteoarthritic hips and ACL and meniscus damage in both knees. I find that a recumbent bike is about the only thing I can do without much pain. Also, and I can't stress this enough - GET TO A POOL! Some hotels with pools allow residents of the same town to swim for a nominal fee during the week. YMCA's are cheap, as are local rec centres.

As well, there are tons of great work-out videos aimed at the handicapped on YouTube, some that you can even do whilst sitting in a chair.

Every little bit helps! Good luck! xo