how long did it take for your fitness to improve?

Ohhhhhhhhh, my first hot yoga class. I felt great the first thirty minutes, but then it hit me and I spent the next 45 minutes in a trembling, mortally embarrassed heap of sweat. I literally thought I would die on the mat and was silently sobbing in child’s pose and wondering if husband and kids would miss me. Thankfully, no one could see the tears for the sweat.

I got used to the hot classes in a couple of weeks.

It took me about ninety days to be able to do everything presented in mat Pilates, a “proper” roll up and teaser being the hardest to master. ( I still ****ing hate wall-sits with arms and elbows pressed against the wall. )

Nowadays I do back-to-back hot yoga and heated mat Pilates classes four times a week, with a quick mile and a half walk between while they sanitize the room. So strength and endurance does come with persistence.

Running took me many weeks to build to 5k and it’s still a trial to do that distance. I’m not a natural runner, having come to it in my late 50’s, but by God, I’m a determined one.

Weight training.......what I like is that you don't master it. There’s always a higher weight to strive for.

Yoga has infinite variations on arm balances, weight training has infinite room to improve. It’s what keeps me motivated to go back.

Plus it’s all so darned much fun.

From the minute I'm not sitting on the couch at the speed of zero and I'm walking out the front door until my legs grow weary from hiking and backpacking. All movement counts. Find activities you love to do and do all of them on your own terms. Action and momentum will take you much further than motivation and willpower. Those are limited resources but taking action and exercising on Day One along with your positive food management plan is a two-fold benefit. Swing the mountain of momentum the other way and move, move, move.

A few weeks

The human body is an AMAZING thing. I'm reminded of that often.

Most recent example: when I got started 'again' in mid June, walking a 3.5 mph pace on the treadmill felt like WORK. I had been running 10ks and running/walking 1-2 half marathons a year. Now I'm doing ~30 minutes in the morning and 30-35 at lunch around 3.7-4.0 mph. And today's lunch walk: I felt good and really strong.

My original example: I was in a car accident January of 2003 which resulted in two broken legs. This happened early on a Sunday morning. They inserted titanium rods in both legs (knee to ankle in each, and hip to knee in one), no casts. 5 days later, on a Friday they had me get out of bed. Granted it was next to nothing and involved me standing up for a few seconds with a walker. Two weeks of in-hospital physical therapy started the next day. I was able to (slowly!) climb stairs when released 19 days after my accident. And in mid March, I made my sister cry before her wedding when I surprised her by walking into the church (with a cane, and again slowly).

I noticed my fitness improved after about 2-3 hours of exercise (broken up into different days). Initially my average speed for a run dropped as I got tired quickly but within 2-3 hours it was back to what it was at the first session. Initially I would run out of puff which was the limiting factor, but after my lungs improved their efficiency it was time for my legs to turn to jelly. That went away once my daily runs reached about 15 minutes. After that it's a very slow process of extending my run speed and duration, over months or years.