by Tina Brewster

Created on: July 15, 2008

The safest exercise for obese and overweight people is walking. You can start out slowly and work your way up the a level that helps you get the weight off and keep it off. Most importantly it's free. You can walk anywhere. You start out with something as simple as walking around the inside of your house. I know this because I was so ashamed of how fat I had become that I didn't want to go anywhere and I didn't want anyone to see me walking because I was afraid they would laugh at my attempt to lose weight, so I started walking in my house, early in the morning before anyone else was up. I turn on the news or weather and listen to them while I walk. You'd be surprised at what a good pace you can pick up in just a few rooms. If a really interesting news story is on, I walk in place in front of the television. Granted I'm not doing anything aerobic but I'm not ready for that yet. My main concern right now is to get moving and to do so without feeling like people are staring at me.

Clearly I have had some very serious self-esteem issues that I'm still trying to work through about my self-image. It's has been very hard because just ten years ago I was a tiny woman weighing just 110 pounds but I have ballooned up to 188 pounds, and on my five foot frame it looks really awful.

I used to work out with heavy weights daily but now I don't have time nor do I have the strength because I have let my self get so down. I was getting so depressed because I just kept gaining weight and nothing I did seemed to matter. I went to my doctor because I have hypothyroidism and begged her to up my Synthroid but she assured me that my dosage was not the problem. She told me to start walking thirty minutes everyday. At first I didn't take it seriously but then I started seeing my legs tighten up a little. I started seriously walking everyday and within two weeks I had lost four pounds.

How do I know the walking was what did it? I let myself get too busy and too lazy to walk every day but kept my diet the same. The four pounds come back. I'm back into the walking again. I feel better everyday and see my body tightening up a little bit more each day. I'm sure by the fall I will have lost enough weight and inches to feel confident enough to start walking at the park.

Like other overweight and obese people, I can look forward to adding other activities into my exercise program once I get the weight down some but until then I can keep walking in my house, walking in place or walking on my treadmill. It's cheap and it's easy. Walking is by far the best exercise for obese and overweight people.

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