Advice needed

[pipercub]

Hi all,I am a newbie to this , i am recovering from a stroke, which i had in the summe 2016, in october 2016 my daughters bought me the fitbit charge, i am really pleased with it, i have managed to improve my steps to 8,000 from zilch, cant get past this figure at the mo because i get tired, what i would like to know is, i am exercising twice a day and am reaching 8,000 steps a day since october, does anybody think that this is doing me anygood, because i'm not reaching 10.000, will it  still be doing my heart any good. i was not excerising at all before my stroke i have stopped binge drinking so i dont drink alcohol at all, so i think i should be doing myself a favour what do you guys think.

 my very best regards Pete.        

[bcalvanese]

First of all congratulations on getting out there and tryng to improve your recovery.

I was obese a couple years ago and developed health issues. I had to get surgery and that uncovered a couple other issues. I was told to start exercising and lose weight or else. All the doctors recommended fast pace walking to start.

Had trouble getting 5,000 steps a day in at first, but eventually made it to 10,000. I wanted to get a cardio so I started power walking 1 to 3 times a day. At first I could barely make it a mile at a 3.5 mph pace without having to lay down and felt like I was dying, but I just kept doing it.

Now I can power walk 10 miles at a 4.5 mph pace, and can jog 5 miles at a 5 mph pace. And I have lost over 50 lbs. so far, and am only slightly over weight.

If this is something that you think may work for you, you should "first" get the "ok" from your "doctor(s)", and make sure it is ok to do cardio as part of your recovery.

If you get the green light and your fitbit has a heart rate monitor, you can use it to track your workouts and heart rate data each workout. You will be getting 10,000+ steps in before you know it.

I am not a doctor so please get approval first.

[pipercub]

Thank you for commenting i appreciate your opinion am hoping to get to 10,000, just get very tired, but do you agree that doing my exercise will be doing some good.

[shipo · Accepted solution]

@pipercub, assuming your doctors have greenlighted your exercise (a pretty good assumption at this point), then 10,000 steps per day is something which you can acheive; that said, it sounds like you may have to work at it.  The good news is the human body is a master at adaptation, you keep pushing your limits/boundaries and it will adapt, no question about it.

The trick to pushing your limits safely are to do so very gradually; at this point (based upon your post) you've only been exercising for a maximum of ten weeks and while you seem a bit frustrated at your progress, trust me, your body is doing its part.  The thing about adaptation is it does take time, the cardio/pulmonary and muscular systems develop relatively rapidly, however, the connective tissue (ligaments and tendons), joints, and skeletal systems take a long time, especially if you're a bit older; pushing your body too fast is a sure means of getting injured.

To the above point, I coach a lot of beginning older runners and while they often come to me raring to go and wanting to run a sub two hour half marathon in say six months, I have to be the bearer of bad news, I tell them, "Sure, your body is most likely capable of developing to the point where you can meet your goal, but it isn't a six month thing, more like a two to three year thing."

[shipo]

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@pipercub wrote:
Thank you for commenting i appreciate your opinion am hoping to get to 10,000, just get very tired, but do you agree that doing my exercise will be doing some good.

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Pretty good bet the kind of exercise you're doing is doing more than "some good", I'd say more like a "lot of good".  🙂

[A_Lurker]

@pipercub - I don't have your health issues, however, when I first started, getting up to the 10,000 seemed daunting.  One of the first steps I took was to break that down during the day.  It's harder to do 2 sets of 5,000 steps.  One way I got around this was to start doing the 250 steps each hour that I was awake.  Then I increased that to 500 steps each hour that I was awake.  As I'm usually awake 15 hours this means without a workout I was getting 7500 steps minimum.  Then when I added more steps at any point then I was hitting 10,000 without any real struggle.

(Now I work on a much higher target that needs way more effort.)

[pipercub]

Thank you very much for your comments i will keep going, mainly i really wanted know do you think that i am doing my self any good.

[pipercub]

oh thank you that was a very good reply i suppose you’re wright i am frustrated but from what you are saying just keep going and i will get there your comment was very valuable yo me thank you.