Thursday - Moving and Shaking

 Our theme this week is discipline. "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those have been trained by it."  Hebrews 11:11

It's always helpful to get encouragement from a friend. This morning a friend that grew up in my home town called to offer encouragement. He suggested googling "Beginning Tabata" for a form of exercise that would help me to lose fat.  Well, I googled, "Beginning Tabata" but did not find anything for beginners. At least nothing this beginner thought she could do.  Tabata is a type of exercise that is very intense for 20 seconds and then resting for 10 seconds. The same set is repeated until four minutes have passed. That is all you need for the day in your aerobic and anaerobic exercise.  It's supposed to be a fat burner extraordinaire!

One type of Tabata was doing kettle bell exercises.  I had visions of Salvation Army bell ringers with a bell in each hand, furiously ringing with all they had for twenty seconds and then resting for ten. Hmmm, I don't have a kettle bell, but maybe I could find something similar. I clicked on the link to see a muscle bound man swinging what looked like a bowling ball with both hands. Good grief!  I can't even pick up a bowling ball, let alone swing it!

I never found any exercise for beginners. What I found was that pro-athletes have added this type of exercise to their routine to make them super buff and super fast.   It seems that the basic, for the beginner, starts off with squats. I also did some research and it is not for obese people, people who are not used to exercising, or people with cardio problems.  And squats irritate the hip and knee problems.  Well, all of those just eliminated me.

So, how can I get exercise, moving and shaking, into my daily discipline?  I have the exercises that I do for my core, back, hips and legs.  But they are all done while laying down. They help keep me strong, but burn very little, if any, fat.

You may be asking why exercise is such a problem for me?  Walking is a problem because there is something wrong in my right hip, where the hip is coming out of socket. It has improved over what it was a year and a half ago when I had to lean over like a very old person to keep from falling down every 3 - 5 steps. It is painful to walk and the more I walk, the harder it is.  The other problem is the heart condition diagnosis. It is called stiff diastolic. When the blood pressure is taken, the top reading is systolic and the bottom is diastolic. The systolic is when the heart is pumping and the diastolic is when the heart is at rest. With stiff diastolic, there is a strong pumping action, which is good. But the heart is stiff and does not relax quickly. The chamber does not get filled with blood before the next beat pumps the blood out. When a person exercises with stiff diastolic, the heart beats rapidly but very little blood is getting pumped through and goes into heart failure with fluid in lungs and extremities.

Prayer is needed to show me how to exercise without aggravating the heart. Exercise is needed to strengthen my heart and body.

Dear Lord, please show me how I can exercise to improve my health without causing harm. I need a revelation. Thank you, Father, for you do care about all the little things.