Exercise OR How to Kill Oneself Very Painfully

I am nothing if not stubborn. Now don't tell my family that I admitted that. They have been trying to convince me that I am for years and I have been trying to convince them that I am the most flexible, reasonable member of this house full of Hard Headed Hassetts. They laugh as I explain this to them; still I will never admit to having gained a stubborn streak after living with this family for over 20 years.

How does any of this relate to exercise? Well, I have decided that to continue to loose weight I am actually going to have to get up off the couch and use my muscles a little. I had been doing push ups, set ups, an all the other exercises the Army had taught me. It was working pretty well too until the day I pushed to hard and hurt my back. I decided that it was a bad idea to stop exercising or I would quit all together. After all it does take 30 days to build a habit, right. Bad idea. It was two weeks before the pain in my back quit. By then I caught the flue, then my husband caught the flue, then he ended up in ICU. So it was a month before I started exercising again.

When my husband came home he bought me something called a gazelle to exercise with. Now after my last bought you would think I would learn my lesson, right? Wrong! I got on there and tried to get back all the muscles I had lost over the last 22 years in a week. Actually I started out OK. But I added time too fast and by the fourth day I decided that it might be a good idea to cut my time in half. By the fifth day when I tried to get out of bed in the morning, I hurt so bad that I had a hard time taking those first three steps. I decided I had better exercise a little or I would get stiff and unable to do anything.

By the sixth day I was hurting so bad that I had to hold on to things in the morning to work my way to the bathroom. I decided that I had better do some stretching to limber myself up a little. That literally brought tears to my eyes. At that point my husband stepped in and told me to let it go for the day. The next day I helped my husband cut and move the branches that we lost during the ice storm. When we finished I decided that was probably enough exercise for the day.

That was yesterday. Today I'm feeling pretty good and am ready to start again. My husband has laid down the law though. He told me that I am only to exercise for four minute for the first three day. I can then add one or two minutes but I am not to raise my time for another three day. I am to continue on that path until I work my way up to the amount time I want to do, (30 minutes.) He rarely ever stops me, but when he puts his foot down I know that it is for my own good. What I did to deserve such a guy I don't know, but I definatly got the better end of the deal. He laughs and says I make life interesting. I think complicated might be a more accurate term.