Exercise Plan for 330 pound woman

Hi!
I would suggest you start slow, and only go as far as you can, increase when your ready, pretty soon you will find yourself going farther and farther.
Good luck on your journey.

Just walk as far as you can and add to you time when you feel yu can push yoursself! I found when i was in the three hundred that was the easiest exercise for me and my knees!! Take it a day at a time and set yourself a goal like in a month a want to be able to walk for thirty min. Good luck!!

First, considering that you're basically sedentary, you may want to consider checking in with your doctor before starting anything.

You say you don't think that you can do anything for thirty minutes. Can you walk for fifteen minutes? Ten? Do that. If you have to take a break, you have to take a break...just try to push yourself a little bit harder every day. After two weeks, add another five minutes daily.

Your knees take the brunt of your body weight and the impact of walking. If you're going from not doing anything to doing something, you're gonna be sore. There's not really a way around that Learn the difference between sore and hurt. Hurting is bad, soreness means it's working.

I would also reconsider the gym if I were you. Particularly for a heavier person, starting off with non-impact aerobics like swimming, aquafit, Arc trainers or ellipticals is a lot safer. Believe me, no one at the gym is looking at you. They're too busy watching themselves in the mirror or squinting to see the closed captions on the tv set.

I think you're doing just great! I would keep up with your walks and stairs until you feel like you can increase it. If you add too fast you may injure yourself since you state you aren't use to strenuous exercise. Walking is a great place to start Your body will let you know when to increase the time because it'll start to get easier for you to breathe when going up/down the stairs and you won't have to take breaks.

You do have a gauge, and its built inside of you! listen to your body. However, I live by the motto "my mind will give up on me before my body does." With this mentallity I have conquered some of the hugest hills while riding my bike. Hills that I used to not even attempt to ride up.

It's ok to take breaks. I would start off with small walks, it doesn't have to be 30 mins all together. You can do 10 before work, 10 during lunch, and 10 after. You really don't have to string it all together at once.

As far as joints hurting and such. Maybe you can try some less impactful exercises. Cycling, eliptical, swimming, etc. How are the shoes that you are wearing. Bad shoes can give you all kinds of pains. I went to a real shoe store (nu balance store) wear they actually took time to properly fit my feet with shoes and it made all the difference in the world for me.

One last thing, you can approach exercise in a way where it doesn't seem like such a task. ride a bike for fun, play fetch with your dog. Go to the mall (mall walking.) Gardening is another good activity that I've been getting into lately that doesn't seem like exercise on the surface but you burn alot of calories just pushing around a lawnmower or moving dirt around. Just anything to get moving is the idea here.

We are all pulling for you Lindsay!

I agree with everyone, and for me the key thing is to not push myself too hard, then I won't have a good memory of the exercise and won't want to do it again. Go far enough, but not too far, to keep it fun! Soon you'll want to push yourself because it's so rewarding! Good Luck!

Sounds like you already know what to do but maybe you want to hear it from someone else.

Walking is probably going to be the best thing for you, and I'd suggest using the park. Try starting with one lap around it. I don't know how big it is actually, so I should change that to, try starting with 10-15mins. Don't keep going until you're exhausted on the first day, the result will just be no walking tomorrow. Take it easy, this is going to be a marathon, so there's no need to sprint at the beginning.

After a few days of walking 10-15 mins, you could start going a bit longer. After 1-2 weeks you could start trying to go a bit faster. Make sure you've got good, supportive joggers. A knee injury slows things down a lot. You might even consider getting a knee support from the chemist (drug store) or sports shop if it starts hurting.

The important thing is to do a bit every day, and to keep increasing the amount you do until you can really get that body working. At the same time, make sure you track what you eat and I guess you'll need to start making some big changes there too.

I think you know a lot of what you need to do. You just need to decide to go and do it. My advice would be, don't wait until tomorrow.

Good luck.

I started at over 300 as well and was in the same boat. I started off with Richard Simmons videos (Sweating to the Oldies). They're a bit cheesy, but they're also low impact and fun. It took me 4 months to finally be able to do an entire video. Until then, I just did as much as I could until I thought I was going to die, then I pushed myself for one more minute. At first, I couldn't handle more than about 5 minutes. Slowly, but surely, I worked my way up and finally made it to the end of the 30 minute video (and then some since I was busy dancing around in celebration). I do cardio 2x a week and strength training 1x a week. For strength training, the weight bearing exercises are still too much for me (pushups, squats, lunges, etc). I can't do leg lifts that lift both legs at the same time, but I can lift one leg at a time, so I do a few sets of that. Eventually I was able to buy a set of ankle weights to add 3lbs to each leg. Now, I can finally do 5 leg lifts (both at the same time) before I get into trouble. But I still push myself to get at least one more in. I also bought some resistance bands and they work very nicely. I find them easier to work with than hand weights and since they're so versatile, you can also do leg and ab work with them.

The bottom line, don't expect yourself to be perfect from the start. Do what you can, then strive to beat your own personal bests. One more rep or one more minute is a success and you should feel good about each baby step of progress that you make.

I do agree with what all these members are saying on the walking and using what weight lifting items you have, But mainly I want to tell you GOOD JOB for putting yourself out there and working on losing weight! You will be amazed at how fast your weight will come off by logging EVERY bite and getting your heart rate up and keeping it up for even say 15 minutes. Like the member above me says your biggest obstacle is your mind, just keep pushin on and when it gets tuff you will need to be tuffer!!! Go girl and friend me if you want and I can help with other threads/groups!!! Best wishes!!!

I agree with others -- walk! If you don't feel up to walking outside then I do a DVD that is in-home walking -- Leslie Sansone has a lot of videos (um, DVDs) ranging from one mile on up to much, much more. I started out with the one-mile (about 20 minutes including warmup/cooldown) -- the Express one is my favorite. It is basically walking in place, kicks, moving back and forth. She incorporates a little strength training in some of them as well. That is the other thing I'd recommend to start with the walking... not going to the gym or anything like that but just a few exercises with dumbells. Also, if you are like me and hate to sweat and have other see you exercise -- I loved water aerobics when I did it for a few months (alas, no programs around here right now). I know water aerobics or exercising in water is often recommended for people with less mobility, even recovering from injuries or things like that as well. And definitely find a buddy!