So, even though I have a gym membership (and even spent several months earlier this year going 3-4 times a week), the fact is I’m fairly apathetic when it comes to exercise. I mean, I’m fat and very out of shape, so working out in front of others is not a pleasant experience (for any of us). I was swimming mostly (when I was going to my gym), but me and chlorinated water don’t mix well – my hair looked awful and my skin broke out so bad you’d have thought I was going through puberty again. My face still hasn’t forgiven me. Other exercises are sort of hit or miss, I mean, I actually like doing the treadmill thing – it’s mindless and you can watch videos or read to pass the time… what’s not to love. However, I have chronic insertional achilles tendinitis and bursitis in both feet/ankles, which makes anything that involves standing or walking for long periods of time mildly uncomfortable on the best of days and down-right excruciating on the worst. So as much as I’d like to do something to increase my fitness level, I’m a bit limited (which is why the swimming was great – until it wasn’t).

This week, since I’ve been struggling with staying under my calorie goals, I really wanted to try to pick up something that would at least burn a couple extra calories (that way it wouldn’t be so bad if I ate an extra bite or two). So I loaded up YouTube to look at low-impact, super easy, beginner cardio videos, which led me to the Fitness Blender channel. In particular, the “Calorie Burning Low Impact Cardio Workout for Beginners” and “Fat Burning Low Impact Cardio Workout at Home” vids, which are still a bit above my current fitness level (I. AM. SO. OUT. OF. SHAPE.), but both contain really simple exercises and I know given everyday use, these are ones that I can do easily here at home in less than 30 minutes. Neither burn a ton of calories (maybe 100-200 depending on one’s workout intensity), but the potential is there to do these more than once a day, especially once I get to a point where I don’t feel like I’m dying just doing the first round (ok… it’s not quite that bad, but not so much that I’m ready to go again just yet). They also have a website, which I haven’t had a chance to look at much, but others might find useful.

Anyways, the point of all my ramblings is that if I can workout, so you can you. Even if we look utterly ridiculous in the beginning (I know I do) or can barely lift your legs (this is also me) or some of the exercises we just can’t do yet – the goal is to keep working at it. Do what we can and just move in place for the parts that we aren’t quite ready for. The point is to just keep moving. One day we’ll wake up and realize that we aren’t struggling as much as we used to, and with a little perseverance we can reach our fitness and weight loss goals.