Another Reason to Take Baby Steps

(I forgot to include my little daisy icon last time I posted.  Sorry!)  Several times in my long and illustrious weight loss career (stop laughing) I've had an experience where I got all gung ho and jumped in full force with a big exercise regimen.  And then I got sick and stopped.

While I know for sure that this is a real phenomena in my own body, I'd never realized there is an actual scientific reason for it.  I didn't even realize it happens to other people.  I thought it was just me and my out of shape self.

Then I read an article the other day about how doing extreme amounts of exercise does, in fact, suppress the immune system.  Thus, making one more likely to suddenly get sick.  (And in my case, give up the exercise.)

Here's an article about it.

Turns out that even athletes, who are used to vigorous exercise, often experience this immune system suppression when they drastically increase the level of intensity of their work outs.  So, I'm just saying, for lil' ol' me, who's used to sitting 16 hours a day, suddenly walking three miles five days a week is a major increase.

So, I'm taking it as another argument for making changes to one's health habits a little at a time.  And this is why I started walking again a few weeks ago, and just did a couple blocks for a few days.  Then I added another block or two every week or so.  (No, it's not because I'm lazy.  Or because I'm just that out of shape.  Well, maybe that's part of it.)

Today I did about 20 minutes all together.  Yes, that seems small, but it's a start.  And I don't want to get sick!