hi everyone:

I used to exercise all the time and I had lost 150lbs on my own doing it. i loved it when I was into it but then of course I stopped it all together and gained all my weight back

my question is as follows:

at my current weight of 239 lbs, I do not exercise because I leave the gym limping. I have knee pain every day and therefore am not exercising because of course, i have that as an excuse.

for people that were really big, now that you are exercising and you lost enough weight to do so, do you find that the knee pain went away enough to let you get your cardio done?

thanks

I wont even pretned that I know what it is liek to be morbidly obese, I was about 245lb but at 5ft 10, that's a BMI of about 36.

I had (and still do) a chronic bursitis problem in one heel. I dont know if its my back, or my gait that's causing it, its time for more investigation, suffice to say I had massive heel pain and swelling that was seriously affecting my life, I could barely walk. Nowadays, that whole lower quadrant of my body, leg, foot, hip and back are out of whack, not so much painful as tight and knotted and just "different" to the other side.

I certainly couldnt do much in the way of exercise, all my previous walking and similar activity were too painful, and swimming has never been a convenient enough activity that I will actually do it consistently. So I was getting fatter. Its why I elected to be banded, I desperately needed to reduce the weight on my heel.

Its worked to a large degree. I mean, there's something wrong there, but I now can run up to 10 miles at a time, and I'll be a bit sore next day but not crippled. I can manage it easily now and its not intensely painful like it was. I just knew that there was no structural damage there, its a soft tissue problem and my achilles tendon is absolutley fine, so I pretty much ignored the pain, managed it with anti inflammatory creams and heat in the early days and as the weight has reduced so has the pain. I'm extremely active now, run five or six times a week, weight circuits, etc.

A huge huge part of that was the strengthening of the surrounding musculature that running has achieved. I coudlnt even do basic calf raises 18 months ago and now of course I can do single leg ones. So its strengthened up enormously and that has helped.

OK, ankles and backs are not knees, but you may find similar effects if your knee pain is caused by your weight. If you have meniscus damage etc its going to be more involved.

My knee pain went away completely after I'd lost about 50 lbs.

My knee pain went away completely after I'd lost about 50 lbs.

Thanks Jacqui and Julie! I could understand what you mean Jacqui because you are taller than me but i'm at 239 and my bmi is much higher, given the fact that i'm only 5ft 1inches tall. I am trying very hard to stay syked and be happy about this decision. I will keep you guys posted. Thanks again!!!

My knee pain went away completely after I'd lost about 50 lbs.

Julie: You lost an average of 12 or so lbs a month right? wow. was just looking at your ticker. You are an inspiration!

I really couldn't exercise intensely 90 pounds ago, but now find everything is just so much easier. The one thing I could do when I was 90 pounds heavier was walking, but at a very slow pace.

my knee / ankle pain went away when i got to about 320ish (80 lbs)

Have you tried Jazzercise? I am totally addicted. You can make it as high impact or as low impact as you want. If you don't want to make it quite as intense, you just modifly the moves and take it easy. The instructor will usually show the class the way to make it low impact and will show how to modify exercises for those with tender joints or backs.

It's about 40 minutes of fun aerobics and then 20 minutes of strength training and floor exercises. It's like dancing and aerobics combined. In my class, we have some very heavy people (like me) and some very thin women, and we all have different levels of fitness. The point is that you can tailor it to your own level of comfort. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.

I swear, if I had to go to the gym 3 or 4 days a week, I wouldn't get out of bed, but I look forward to my Jazzercise class.