Too Heavy To Exercise?

by Suzanne Andrews

Do you want to get a fitter healthier you but feel you're too heavy to exercise? Guess what? If you can get up and walk you can exercise. Very, very few people are truly too large to exercise. Even the heaviest of us can lift some small hand weights. You have to start somewhere. 

 If your weight is an issue making exercise difficult, then begin slowly. Though 30+ minutes is required to get the full benefits of exercise, you do not have to start with that much time. “Slow and steady” says the tortoise, and he was right. Build up the amount of time you exercise, but you can only start where you are.

Begin with some simple, easy exercises. Can you walk for ten minutes? Then do it, every day. You can even start doing a chair walk exercise. When I was 60 lbs overweight, that's how I began - slow and steady.  

Can you lift a can of soup in each hand like a dumbbell? Yes? Then what are you waiting for? Start with what you can do and go from there. Any exercise is better than no exercise at all. Besides high impact moves can hurt your joints so it's best to not do any moves that require jumping. So even if a five minute walk leaves you winded, do it and before long it will stretch to ten, then twenty minutes.  

There are numerous benefits to short exercises, so don’t think it is a waste of time. A workout as short as eight minutes can relieve tension, anger, and decrease feelings of sadness. Do not let your weight keep you from changing your life for the better. If you do not do something now, think how much more difficult it will be in the coming years. Your weight will continue to rise making it even harder to start exercising. That alone should get you moving.

 The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be. Each pound of muscle that you add to your body will burn an additional 35-50 calories a day. The result is that every exercise will be more efficient and your body will burn fat even when you are not exercising!  

There is more good news; exercise suppresses appetite hormones helping you to eat less. It also helps your body flush out toxins. All of this will help you lose weight and feel better. 

FUNCTIONAL FITNESS: TOTAL STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

It can be embarrassing, not to mention intimidating, to go to a gym full of fit, muscular young bodies. That is enough to make anyone who is even a little overweight feel too fat for exercise. So skip the gym if it depresses you.

Exercise in the privacy of your home. If you do not want to run in public, then it may be worth investing in a treadmill or get an assortment of DVD’s and workout to a different one every day.

If you want to do strength training, get a few weights and get started. There really is no reason your current weight should prevent you from benefiting from regular exercise. In fact, exercising will boost your self-esteem giving you a better self-image; which is much more important than how anyone else views you. The great side effect is that the better you feel about yourself the more you will want to continue exercising.

 Suzanne Andrews founded Functional Fitness in 2008, the most popular fitness series for boomers and seniors broadcasting on over 159 Public Television stations throughout the US and Canada. Read Suzanne’s inspiring comeback story of how she survived a near fatal accident, From Deaths Door to Producing a National Fitness Series. Feel free to send Suzanne a message here.

By Collage Video | | Functional Fitness, health, Healthy, healthy aging, Suzanne Andrews, Weekly Blog |
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