Getting back on my Peloton

I feel like it’s been a long journey but I’ve finally gotten back on my Peloton!

I stayed off it for months in fear of causing myself more leg pain but I FINALLY overcame the fear.

As someone, and I know I’m not alone in this, who has had leg pain every day, literally, for as long as I can remember, this is a big deal!

Like many people, I know I’m going to have pain every day. The question is no longer, “will I have pain?” but “how much pain will i have?” And the degree of pain can vary depending on the weather, what I do (how much walking, sitting, standing, riding, etc), the surfaces and slops I walk on, stairs climbed and the shoes I wear (the amount of arch support, heel, etc).

At some point, you begin to fear the pain.

For example, you begin to weigh the fun of going out with friends against the pain and length of pain that you’ll suffer after doing whatever the fun activity is.

You weigh the pain of exercise against the pain of watching the scale slowly raise to higher and higher numbers.

My mother did try to find the cause of my leg pain

My mother took me to many doctors trying to find the cause of my leg pain AND spent uncountable sleepless nights rubbing my legs with alcohol. (Rubbing alcohol massages and then a heating pad after the pain had eased up some, seemed to be the only thing that ever helped the pain).

To this day, I use a heating pad on my legs every evening and must go to sleep with a heating pad on my legs.

Doctors could never explain my leg pain

The doctors could never explain it and answers ranged from, nothing found to growing-pains.

Later, my step father, a huge 6’2″ man, would take me to the doctors and say he thought it was “all in my head”, to which the, usually tiny, frightened doctors would agree.

Degenerative knee disease

Eventually, in my 30s I was diagnosed with Degenerative Knee Disease, which is different from my other leg pain and causes ankle and arch problems.

I know my other leg pain is in some way hereditary because my Dad had it too but mine was worse than his.

For a few years now, we’ve been struggling to find an exercise I can do

We all know that we need to exercise for our health and weight and for a few years now, we’ve been struggling to find an exercise I can do that doesn’t cause me extreme pain.

As far as weight loss…

In the past, I personally had great success with a combination of aerobics and diet.

Specifically, the Mind, Body and Spirit workout by Flo Jo, combined with a diet recommended by my doctor.

And, always a big plus, I absolutely love doing aerobics!

Unfortunately, my leg and foot pain has gotten to the point that the last time I did my aerobics workout, by the middle of the night, I was in so much pain that I actually considered going to the hospital.

Success varies by person

My friend, Erum, had great success with an elliptical stair machine and diet but Jason and I knew that wouldn’t work for me because of my knee and foot problems.

So, we kept looking for something I could do. I even tried water aerobics but didn’t lose any weight and found the chlorine to be very hard on my skin and hair.

Then another friend, Courtney, had great success with a Peloton.

Both ladies have been keeping the weight off! They look great but most importantly,  as far as I know, they feel great!

From my time as a skinny-mini, I can tell you that the saying, “it can never taste as good as being skinny feels”, is true, BUT…

weight sneaks up on you!

One sneaky pound at a time, until suddenly, your wondering what happened!

Good or bad, you always carry core beliefs with you

Growing up, I was taught that people are either fat or skinny and there’s not a lot you can do about it. Which isn’t actually true.

Maybe to some extent it is, like my Dad could eat all the fried chicken and ice cream he wanted to, without gaining a pound but…

I know it isn’t 100% true that people are either fat or skinny and there’s not a lot they can do about it.

So, after Courtney’s great success with the Peloton and me going on and on about it. Lol

My husband surprised me with a peloton!

It was a wonderful and generous gift but after a couple “beginner” workouts, it wasn’t going so well!

First of all, I don’t even know how to sit on a bike!

My only bicycle experience

Growing up, according to my mother and step father, bikes were for boys!

But I wanted to be able ride a bike soooo bad, so my brother secretly taught me to ride his bike. It was a Huffy Mountain Bike and it was a great bike!

Truly, he did this at great peril to himself and his own biking happiness!

Being secret lessons, taken only occasionally, no one knew I could ride.

Then one day, my Dad, even though I didn’t see him anymore, gave me a pink bike.

I loved it! It was so pretty! Cotton candy pink with white handle grips and streamers!

Of course, he didn’t actually give it to me, he gave it to my step father and said it needed some work on the breaks because it was second hand and that he’d have to teach me to ride.

My step father, of course, gave it to me without any breaks or lessons and said something along the lines of dont ride in the traffic.

The don’t ride in traffic was a joke, because there was no traffic. We lived on a dead end street with only about 10 houses on it. Lol

Of course, the first thing I did was take it to show my best friend, Connie, who lived next door to us.

Connie’s driveway was extremely steep and not knowing there were no breaks and/or not actually realizing what that meant, being only around 10 years old, I rode it down her driveway!

I narrowly missed hitting a copse of trees head on and saved myself by steering to the right and slowing down with my feet!

Unfortunately, I scraped a neighbors spare car which she kept parked along the road.

She was such a sweet lady. Her name was Nora and I loved talking to her if I saw her outside when I was walking home from the school bus stop.

She wasn’t upset at all. She said accidents happened and it was just her old spare car but of course at home, the world was ending! I had scraped a neighbors car and that was that! My beautiful bike went into the trash and I never got on another bike again!

How do you even ride a bike or anything that looks like a bike?

So, here I am with a Peloton…

Now, being a non-bike rider, you would think that you just sit… but NO!

You have to sit on your “sit bones”, whatever they are(!) or your entire bottom portion goes numb!! Which can actually cause long-term damage (oh god!)!

And then, apparently, the handle bars are supposed to be lower than the seat, so I always feel like I am falling forward and leaning on my wrists, which puts too much strain on my wrists… because, you know, delicate princess here! Lol

So, I stopped riding and then I was afraid to get back on!

Afraid of the pain, afraid of falling off, afraid of the numbness.

After months of trying to sike myself up to get back on it, I finally did!

I decided that I would take it EXTREMELY SLOW.

I would start with only 5 or 10 minutes per day and adjust the seat so that it’s comfortable to me, not necessarily as reccomended.

I like the “scenic rides” because if I do a ride with an instructor, the competitive side of me comes out and I want to keep up.

And I listen to my own music because on a slow-pedaling scenic ride, I don’t want to listen to whatever the popular music is, I want to listen to my own favorite music. Whichever song I feel goes along with the “scene”.

What’s with these scenic rides?

Peloton’s scenic rides are not actually very scenic.

Yesterday, I did a scenic ride through the South of France.

I thought it would be very pretty; maybe a water view, maybe some flowers, etc. Actually, it was a bland, paved road with trees on each side (I love trees but I was expecting more!) and at one point, a fast moving white van that ran us off the road! LOL

Never the less, I rode to one of my favorite summer songs, Summer Breeze by Seals and Croft.

Jason heard the song repeat a couple times and came to see what was going on. He laughed at me and said I was supposed to listen to something that pumps you up. Lol

I said it does! It makes me want to pedal super fast but I’m pedaling as slow as possible to as little resistance as possible so i don’t hurt myself! Lol

He teased me that I’m the only girl in the world on a Peloton, listening to Seals and Croft, imagining that she is wearing a sundress, riding a tiffany blue bike with a basket on the front, full of flowers, a Yorkshire Terrier and a French Baguette! LOL

Xo