Hauling this hulking body around is hard work! But I really can’t count living with my body as actual exercise. If I am going to overcome my obesity, I have to exercise, even though my knees are fighting me all the way.

I walked again tonight, stretching my walk farther than the night before. And, yes, my knees are still killing me. But I know I must get more activity in my day. I live in a single-floor house and don’t walk to work (which is twenty miles away). So, I thought of one quick, easy way to get more activity in my day while at home in my normal routine.

If you are like me, you’ve been yo-yoing your weight for years (or, in my case, decades). That yo-yo effect has not just left my body a wreck, but it has littered my home and garage with the failed efforts of past diet attempts. Yes, I have a yellowing copy of the Atkins book. I have Susan Powter’s Stop the Madness videos. Workbooks from seminars by Gwen Shamblin and the Prism program are tucked away in drawers in my office. I still use my Jenny Craig microwave cookware long after abandoning the program. And I still have the original Jane Fonda workout tape.

Today, I dug through the collection of dusty workout equipment in my garage and pulled out my aerobic  step. You can buy them in stores or online for anywhere from $50 up to $150. Mine I bought years ago at a garage sale for ten dollars. It hasn’t gotten much use lately. But I thought of a way that I would be forced to use it.

I have placed the step in the entrance to the hallway inside my house. The short hallway connects the TV room to the main part of the house and includes the entrance to the guest bathroom. Anytime I want to go to or from the TV room or the bathroom, I now have to step up and over my aerobic step. And if instead of just stepping up and over I do a series of step-ups and cross-overs, all the better.

When trying to change a lifestyle, every little bit helps!

As I said in yesterday’s blog, I had decided that I have to change from sedentary to active. To do this, I was going to begin walking. What a great idea, right?

Well, my good intentions were rewarded with major “ow-ies.” Alas, a price must be paid when going from coach potato to a walker. Last night as I ventured into the cool twilight for my first walk on my journey out of obesity, I was full of ambition…. which lasted about two minutes.

Oh, my aching knees! For my first walk I decided to proudly stride the short loop around the adjoining neighborhood and then walk through my neighborhood. Who was I kidding? In short time, the screaming of my knees drowned out all my  high hopes. Not only were my knees crying out in pain, but they seemed to shout, “Go home! Get me in a hot tub, right now!”

So glad I was walking the loop, which meant it was as much distance to go forward as back. And I did it. Though what should have been a simple, quick walk took me forty minutes, with my knees screaming the whole way and my feet barely lifting from the concrete at the end.

But, I think, despite all the extremity screaming, my body really does want to take this journey out of obesity. I walked the circuit again tonight, with the knees again screaming for attention. But, amazingly, I did the circuit in twenty minutes instead of forty. I actually had to add distance to make it a proper long walk.

First steps, they can be painful, but they do start the journey. As the Chinese philosopher Laozi said fifteen hundred years ago, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I’ve taken that single step. Now, I just need my knees to stop screaming at me.

Weight loss: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. But can my knees handle either one?

As I start my weight loss journey, I’m doing voluminous research on the web to help with my quest. All I wanted was a simple calculator to help me determine how many calories a day I should be eating. Wow! I didn’t think I would have to dive in the acronym pool for something so simple! BMR, BMI, TDEE … hey! I just want to figure out what to put in my mouth, not drown in the alphabet!

Every calculator I went to asked about my daily activity, giving me choices between Sedentary (desk job) to Very Active (bike messengers). Had to admit I am not in the middle, I am completely sedentary. So, unless I was going to change careers and suddenly start delivering messages on my bicycle, I was looking at spending the rest of my life on a 1000 calorie diet. Or …. I could make a less-drastic life change and take steps (literally) to becoming more active.

I know I will never be one of those people who spend most of the day doing heavy, physical activity. At my age (56), it’s a bit late to decide to become a construction worker and being a marthoner never interested me.

But I can start to walk. Not a treadmill, not a gym, just plain walk! And I quite desperately need to do this. I’m a school librarian. My parking spot is on the opposite side of campus from the library. I confess, at the end of last year I was getting winded just walking to my library each morning. Looking back, I now realize that was the ONLY exercise I was getting all day was that solitary walk. Now it’s summer and I haven’t even been getting my “walking to the parking lot” exercise.

So ….. here goes. A walk tonight when the sun sets. Wish me luck!