Will I get used to this?

Hi Mary, what type of exercise are you doing????? and yep happened to me too...

Hi and welcome!

The only thing I can say is, I was never a "sporty" person, but I started out by walking and eventually, I wanted more of a challenge and incorporated jogging for a couple minutes in between my walking. After, I bought a Pedometer and saw how many calories I burned in what time, I began to challenge myself.

Now, I go to the gym regularly and I bought a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and that has really helped me to stay active, because I love to see those calories burned and know that I becomine more healthy every month.

You have done the first step. COngrats! Now stay on here and log your calorie intake and your exercise calories... you will start noticing where you need more help.

Good Luck!

It gets easier for sure, but you have to work up to it. If you've never ran or worked out before I wouldn't suggest just diving into an intense workout. It's going to kill your ambition which you need to get through something like this!

Keep at it! It does get easier, i used to wheeze my head off just stepping on the treadmill, and walking up hill was a no go area, I would get the bus or a lift instead, but now, I beat my kids up the hill on occassion :drinker:

Trust me, I NEVER thought I'd EVER manage the hill I live on, but I do, and I even get off that bus early - just so I can walk up that hill these days :flowerforyou:

It does get easier... you're just gonna have to make some sacrifices early on. Meaning, there will be some pain involved... Ask yourself, is it unbearable after 5 minutes, or just very difficult? If it's very difficult, push yourself an extra 5 minutes... 5 agonizing minutes is not gonna kill you. Then, as mentioned here, try to add 1 or 2 minutes at a time each week. Do 6 minutes difficult, 6 minutes unbearable... and so forth. In 2 months, you'll be working out for half an hour at a time with no problem. Try to do this 6 times/wk. 3 days on and 3 days off. I know you need time to recover, but when you are working out for only 5 or 10 minutes, you don't really need that many days off. Try doing some weight training also, in ADDITION to all this stuff you're doing. It'll change the shape of your body and you'll really notice a difference 4 or 5 months from now. Hope that helps. I got a lot of work to do too so, don't give up. No pain, no gain. A lot of people will tell you, don't over do it... I think that's just fuel for excuses. most people who are severely out of shape, couldn't over do it if they tried. Instead, we end up saying to ourselves "let me no over do it," and you end up never exerting yourself to the limits you need to reach to actualize some improvements. So push yourself a little bit and if you think you're over doing it, don't worry, you'll know the next day if you did. By then, you already pushed your body to another level that you had not realized before and it will make things easier the next day. Good luck.

If you're not an exercise oriented person the first thing you need to do is to set up an easy to follow plan. As most have pointed out doing something easy is better than hurting yourself doing something that's foreign to your daily life style.

Start walking. Go for short distances (away from the house and back again) and then extend that distance each week until you get yourself up to a mile.

Add a jog in every now and then after you've gotten used to the 1 mile walk routine. Jog for a minute only and then walk until you have your breath back. Repeat, etc.

Remember the body doesn't like to exercise so it will be hard to set up a routine but once it's established it becomes addictive and hard to stop. A word of caution here is important to remember -- if you ever do stop for any length of time it will be just as difficult to start up again as it was to first get started.

If the weather isn't cooperative and you need to rely on the bike then put it on the easiest setting you can get it to and just go through the motions until both your lungs, legs and back adjust to the exercise. Each week add more time to the routine until you either get bored or you have achieved, let's just say for planning purposes, one mile. Once you've achieved your time or distance goal then add just a touch of tension to the routine and work yourself back up to your goal time or distance. Repeat this process until you are ripping the sweat out of you and your lungs are begging for more of a work out.

You never want to get yourself to the point of hurting because that only creates the desire to not work out. Don't pamper yourself but pay attention to what your body is telling you. You will ache the next day but it shouldn't hurt like shin splints or a pulled muscle would. Work carefully into an exercise routine.

It does get addictive like eating really expensive dark chocolate! :laugh:

Breathing becomes so hard to me that I can't seem to continue! Did this already happen to you? And please give me tips on how to avoid this in the future! Many thanks!

When I started running 6-7 years ago, I couldn't run to the corner without getting so out of breath, I had people ask if I was having an asthma attack. Two marathons, 6-7 half-marathons and hundreds of miles later, I routinely run 10-15 mile runs on weekends, with no walk breaks, at a moderately brisk pace, while carrying on a conversation with my running buddies.
Start slow. Find something like the Galloway running program where you alternate walk / run intervals, gradually increasing the proportion of running as your stamina / fitness improves. Over time, you will be able to run longer and faster.
The other thing is to pace yourself. Even now, if I enter a race and try to hang with the fast people at the start, I will still get winded early and have trouble recovering. So, if you have a one minute or five minute interval to run, pick a pace that will challenge you, but that you can still maintain through the whole interval, rather than running as fast as you can and having to drop off halfway through.