[Nota Bene: this page originally posted in December, 2008]
My Story
At age 43, two decades of being a sedentary couch potato had caught up with me and I was waaay fat and seriously out of shape. Not only that, I also was diagnosed as being in danger of having Type II Diabetes. But now 4 years later I'm finally losing weight and caring about my blood sugar levels, all without starving myself. I never ever thought I would be able to report losing 50 pounds of weight, but here I am a year into exerbent exercising and that is indeed the case. Here' s my brief story and what I have found has worked for me.
Obese
Yuck. I hate that word. But that's what I had become--obese. In the spring of 2005, I had additionally learned from my health care providers that I was borderline Type II Diabetic most likely from years and years of filling my face with sugary foods. Often I'd even substitute a package or two of cookies for a meal.
So, having learned this and having gotten the advice of: (1) start exercising; and (2) cut down on sugar intake, I slowly started doing so. I had learned that Type II Diabetes could lead to all kinds of nasty health problems even including losing limbs and I decided I should do something.
Exercise?
Over the years I had occasionally tried to exercise, but I lived in a humid environment and even going for a short evening walk had become a huge challenge. The treadmill and Nautilus weight set I had bought remained largely unused in my basement. I ended up moving to Wyoming in 2004, a much drier climate and therefore more conducive to outdoor exercise.
I remember the first time I went for a walk purely for the experience of exercising I managed a walk of only about a quarter mile--two city blocks out and two city blocks back. But, I did indeed feel good that I had taken this step and I'm sure at the time I duly rewarded myself for this short success by eating some sugary treats. Oops.
I owned a bicycle--an old 10-speed Schwinn LeTour II that had been on some long trips in my college days, but I couldn't see hoisting my bulky frame on it and biking. So instead I bought a recumbent trike. And since at the time I lived pretty close to my city's bicycle/exercise path, I used it often in the summertime. And I continued walking as well.
2.5 Years, but little progress
For the next two and a half years, I continued exercising a couple times a week; walking, biking. When the weather got too cold, I also ordered an indoor recumbent stationary exercise bike. By 2007 I had fallen into a groove of a formal workout a couple times a week of about 30 minutes or so, but staying sedentary the rest of the time. During this time I also did improve my eating habits somewhat, cutting down on sugar and choosing better foods. I even joined a fitness center for several months in the winter of 2005-2006.
After two and a half years of maintaining this routine, I did find that I was controlling my blood glucose levels a bit through exercise and eating habits, but I wasn't really making any huge leaps of improvement.
Two things I noticed that helped turn things around
In the fall of 2007, I noticed a couple things: first, I had noticed that if I did a "workout" of about 30 minutes, it would help lower my glucose levels a bit but not significantly. But if my workout was 60 minutes, my glucose levels would actually fall farther, often down into "normal" range (under 100).
The second thing that came to my attention was a couple reports on the news and the internet talking about exercising and health. The gist of the reports was that 30 minutes of exercise a few times a week was good for maintaining adult health, but wasn't enough for folks like myself who were obese and really needed to lose a lot of weight and might also be struggling with Type II Diabetes. Instead, these reports said that folks in my situation really needed an hour per day (every day) of vigorous exercise.
Now, I cannot express to you how disheartened I was by this news. After all, I was being a good boy and doing some formal exercising 2-3 times a week for 30 minutes at a pop. Plus, I had improved my eating habits. And now some goofballs are telling me that I needed an hour of vigorous exercise every day? I was stunned and disappointed and frustrated by this news.
But winter 2007 was closing in and I already owned my "ExerBent" indoor recumbent stationary exercise bike, so what I decided to do starting in mid November of 2007 was to sort of humor myself and the reports by actually following this advice for one month.
My Start
The first step I took was to buy a bathroom scale to weigh myself periodically. I had thought that I might weigh as much as 300 pounds, but I was wrong: I weighed 325 pounds! Yikes.
Off I went, continuing to eat healthier and lower my sugar intake, but now also exercising on my exercise bike for one hour per day, every day. And as I had already been doing the past couple years, I kept track of the exercising I was doing in a log (which eventually made it into a spreadsheet).
Keep in mind that my original motivation here was more to try to control my blood glucose level through exercise than it was to actually lose weight, but the weight started coming off...
After about 5 weeks I found that I had put in 33 hours on my exerbent, and I weighed myself: 319 pounds. Wow; ok, so I actually lost 6 pounds by doing this exercise daily. OK; let's try another month or two.
By mid-February of 2008, I was down to 313 pounds. By mid-March, I was at about 306, and on May 7, 2008 I had cracked the 300 pound mark when I weighed in at 299.8 pounds. Wow. And I discovered that for me there was no better motivator for continuing on with this program than the positive reinforcement I was getting from the bathroom scale.
Your exercising doesn't necessarily have to be on an exerbent, but it's the exercise method I have used and which has worked for me, and it may work well for you too! For more information on why an exerbent is my equipment of choice, see the "All About Exerbents" page.
For the latest news and updates by date, please continue on to My Blog