I grew up hearing this. I actually believe it. I think that whenever you are trying to achieve something there must be a certain amount of sacrifice. When we want to lose weight or get healthier with exercise it is necessary to experience some discomfort as a consequence of your decision to eat less or exercise more. The most obvious in terms of pain would be to increase your physical activity. I decided that I should start walking. I thought this is pretty easy, I can have my dog join me and walking won’t be too difficult. I can listen to smooth jazz. I cannot remember ever having any serious issues with a simple walk. What I was going for was a bit more than just a simple walk. I decided that I should walk at least 10,000 steps a day. Seriously!! I didn’t use a graduated scale I just decided that I would go from basically no walking to 10,000 steps a day. In retrospect, I probably should have been more willing to ease into this thing. Almost immediately I was having serious pain in my right foot. No cuts, bruises, blisters or anything else that was visible but the ball of my right foot hurt. It was bad enough that I seriously thought I might stop doing the walking program. I called my oldest son and he related to me that he had had a similar issue at one point and that it was probably a nerve in the middle of your foot and that cortisone shots or surgery would make it go away. I told him that I would wait on going to a podiatrist for some period of time and hope the pain would go away. It did persist for about a week. I was really close to trying to find another way to get my exercise. During this time I had scheduled a flight to Arizona to visit my youngest son Jeff and his family. We were scheduled to go to Prescott Arizona to watch my Grandson Paul participate in a Mountain Bike Race. After he raced I decided to walk around the venue. I ended up getting my 10,000 steps that day and I haven’t experienced any pain in that foot since. Problem solved. Subscribing to the “no pain…no gain” approach I guess the pain was expected and I was able to work through it and avoid a trip to the Podiatrist.
I have been staying with my son Jeff and his family for about a week. I have walked in excess of 10,000 steps each day this week. No pain. I am now thinking that continuing to persevere, and continuing to do the program has eventually led me to where I am today. Unfortunately, I still walk slowly. Everyone passes me and that bothers me a little. I do step it up and increase the pace if the right song comes on and I can walk with the music. Most of the music is good to listen to but doesn’t have a beat that is correct to accomplish a faster pace. On occasion, it feels like I am moving faster but the other day I saw a woman walking parallel to me on the same street and we were going the same way. It didn’t look like she was walking any faster than me but in about 15 minutes she was so far ahead of me that she was almost out of sight. That sucks. Maybe she had someplace to be. Maybe her music was faster than mine. Maybe I am just walking to the beat of a different drum. Whatever the reason I need to step it up. Maybe a little pain wouldn’t hurt. I am going to think about it and maybe tomorrow I will walk at an increased pace and get my walk in in less time.
