For those of you just joining us, I started out this program by riding my recumbent exercise bike for 15-20 minutes daily. That went down to every other day when my hip started acting up and when I started being awakened in the middle of the night by bad hip pain, I stopped completely and it showed on the scale. I was using Aleve and Aspercreme at night to try to alleviate the pain but I still kept getting awakened and didn't dare get back on the bike. Now I have found a tube of Walgreen's version of "Ben-Gay" in the house and for the last two nights, have managed to sleep most of the way through. So today I got a little adventurous and start exercising again. But not on the bike, at least not for now. I found an old copy of "Sweatin' to the Oldies" in my video collection so I'm workin' it out to Richard Simmons. This tape is pretty old---dating back to 1988, I think, but it is still useful and I have to admit the music is great. I can't get through the whole thing yet and stop when "cooldown" comes along. The reason I stop is not because I don't want to cool down, but that in the tape, everyone gets down on the floor. If I get down on the floor, I'm down there for awhile whether I like it or not. It's very hard for me to get up again due to my arthritic knees. Yeah, I'm just an arthritic mess, but I hope losing some weight will help with that. Anyway, I was watching the people working out on the tape and was so impressed that Richard used "normal" people back in a time when regular folks just weren't seen in tapes like this. Remember Jane Fonda's workout--"feel the burn"? Jane looked like she was made out of molded plastic, like Barbie. And Cher--how many tummy tucks has she had? It's not normal for a woman in her mid 50s to look that way! But hey, she can afford it, so I guess she'll keep doing it until she splits a seam or something. What if it happens while she's on live TV or something? Ick. Anyway, I'm moving again and it feels pretty good so far.

Please leave your constructive comments!