Why You Shouldn't Be Scared of Jogging

There's two main things I got out of watching obesity reality shows: An insight into the mental dysfunction it takes to become severely obese, and that the obese body is every bit capable of exercise as any healthy body. It may take longer, but if you make your body move, it adapts in a remarkable fashion for the next time it might have to do the same thing.

If all you can do is walk to the nearest lamp post, do it. Do it a few times then start walking a few steps further each day. You'll find your body is adapting and probably building the muscle necessary to complete the task.

With me, I could walk about twenty minutes when I started getting fit this time. I thought that was all I could do until I saw people twice my weight doing more, including jogging. So I almost doubled my walking time that I do every day and I was perfectly fine.

In my late twenties, when I first got fit and lost a great deal of weight, I cycled a lot and, after I lost about 40 pounds, started jogging. Much to my surprise I liked it. Hell, I loved it. It was so empowering to think that the lifelong fat guy could jog. But mostly I liked the endorphins that my body released when I exercised at a little higher intensity. I became an endorphins junkie. I can tell you that "runner's high" is very real. Maybe not everyone gets it easily, but I did.

It was big morale boost for me to be able to ride my bicycle a few times this month, but jogging--or as the kids these days call it: "running"--seems like the last frontier of exercise to conquer. I jogged for about ten seconds during my walk one night to see what would happen. I didn't die.

Earlier this month I would occasionally (not every night) start jogging for about thirty seconds after I got well into my walk. If I went any further I'd get severely out of breath and that doesn't seem safe to me. But, as any expert will tell you, all you have to do is jog for a little while (usually 90 seconds at first) and then walk for a couple of minutes to rest up, then repeat. That's called 'walking to run.' It's how most people start a jogging program if they're not already fit.

Ninety seconds is too much for me right now. I'm too out of shape and too heavy. My rule of thumb is to jog until I can't any more because I'm out of breath or my legs are too fatigued. At first it was 30 seconds, but now it's a minute, and today I did five minutes of a very slow trot on the treadmill at my clinic. Treadmills are a little easier than running in the real world because the side walk is moving for you. The remedy for that is to raise the incline of the treadmill up slightly to just 1%. That compensates for the moving walking surface.

It feels good to jog and it feels good to sweat. It's a self esteem boost and anything that helps me get out and exercise is important. I can see myself jogging for ten minutes later this year as part of my walks, but just not on consecutive days.

I hurt my knee when jogging when I got in shape fifteen years ago. Injury is possible but it's rare and you have to use common sense. If you're middle aged like me and or if you're quite heavy, taking a day off between jogs is important to help your body recover and get strong again. The compulsivity and risk taking behaviour that got me obese in the first place caused me to jog too much, too often and when my knee began to hurt, I didn't stop because I was looking for my endorphins fix.

It took a few months to heal and I really hated stopping jogging for that long. I've learned my lesson though. My knees are doing just fine these days. Four months ago they'd hurt just by walking up the stairs in my house. But my body has since greatly adapted to exercise.

Here's to good health!