Exercise, Schmexercise

Last July my friend Cathy and I started "walking the mall." We chose the mall because we live in Bakersfield, and for us to have walked anywhere else would have been suicide. July in Bakersfield is hotter than the hinges of hell. I know, I know, people here will tell you that it's a dry heat and that is true, but then so is fire. Like I said for two pretty hefty women, somewhere air conditioned was essential. I guess we could have gone to her house or my apartment and walked in circles, but that would have been boring. We agreed to walk around the entire mall once, three times a week and we have been pretty faithful about doing it. I hate walking, or exercise of any kind. When you weigh 316 pounds, all you really want to do is sit in a recliner and watch TV. I have stuck with it though, and have learned a couple of amazing things. First, that it is possible to exercise, stick with it, and see a change in your physical stamina. I didn't expect to see anything, to tell you the truth. I knew that I wasn't exactly training for a marathon, walking a mile three times a week. However, it is more than I was doing before and I did see a change over a few months. The first time we did it I ended that walk red-faced, sweating, and gasping for breath. I think it took us almost 40 minutes to walk it. Now we walk it in about 25 minutes and I am not even breathing hard, much less sweating and red-faced. Yay! Progress! The other thing that I have learned is that I am going to have to exercise more if I want it to have an appreciable effect on my weight loss. I still weigh about the same as I weighed last July. Of course, I could weigh a lot more, so I'll count my blessings.