Hi everyone, this is my very first post on this board and I'm hoping I can get either a solution or just a few helpful hints to my physical problem.
To start off, I'm 19 years-old, almost 20 come February, and for my whole life I've been overweight; never morbidly obese, but definitely a good 20-25lbs heavier than I should have been. I always exercised half-heartedly throughout my middle and high school years, always making vows every new month to finally lose weight and get a bikini body. And of course, I never ate right or exercised enough, so I never got anywhere
However, I did lose some weight - at 14 I was 182lbs, and eventually I whittled down to around 171 or 172 throughout the years, but could NEVER get below that number no matter what I tried.
Until recently, this was my life. However, this past summer things started changing. I came home for the summer after my freshman year at college ended, and my parents ended up selling their house while I was living at home. I don't know if it was the stress of moving or what, but suddenly one day I stepped on the scale after an intense week of working out and packing/moving boxes, and I was 167! I was so astonished, but it made SENSE. I was doing the elliptical at least 1 hour a day, and ate when I was hungry, and didn't eat when I wasn't. This was all happening at the end of July.
By the time I left for a different college at the end of September, I was down to 150lbs and had gone from a size 12 to a 10. However, now I seem to find myself at a plateau. Running on the elliptical, even for longer than an hour and at a high intensity, doesn't give me the good workout it used to. I would love to start running either on the treadmill or in the outdoors (my campus is fantastic for running), but I haven't had the best experiences.
Whenever I have tried running before, the next few days my knees are KILLING me. They feel swollen and hurt so much even to just walk. Part of me wonders that now, since I'm down so much weight than before, if I try running again maybe things will be different. I remember watching a commercial that said losing 1lb of weight takes off 4lbs of impact from your joints, is that right?!
I'm open to any suggestions, stories, questions, comments, tips, etc. etc that could help!
