T

Introduction and Question

Hello,

I'm 30 and after years of struggling to work exercise into my daily routine, I've been back on track for four months now. I was watching a documentary on fitness and was inspired by a demonstration that willpower was like a reserve that drops through the day - if you've expended willpower not eating something you'd have wanted to eat, it's possible that it will be harder to resist it later or to put as much into a workout. From that, they shared the message you should do something you enjoy. Things seemed to click into place for me and now my entire health regime is dedicated to sustainability. For that reason, I don't do anything that requires too much willpower. I've been quite successful with the exercise, maintaining 30+ minute workouts for 5-6 days a week. Diet is a bit trickier, but I've been making some progress there. I choose exercises I enjoy and for that reason don't do as much HIIT as I'd like to (I manage about once a week at the moment)- I still haven't found much in the way of HIIT that I really like to do though I'm hoping that will change now I've found FB. I've been using another YouTube channel mainly for months and months and I'm finally getting bored of the numerous videos, that's when I found FitnessBlender. I'm so happy and grateful there are people online with Daniel and Kelli's mindset (it's similar to the

owner of the YouTube channel I have been using). I find it so difficult to find online resources that don't have the words 'burn/shred/ripped' plastered all over them, especially when it comes to using dumbbells (which I like to do!). I'm delighted to have found this place. Not only do they have an inspirational attitude to fitness, but the website is brilliant.

My weight is not dropping as fast as it used to, but as long as it's moving in the right direction, I'm not getting too frustrated, though sometimes that's a bit of a battle. There have been some tears. I am not that attached to the scales and the number on them, I'm just looking for a way to track progress. Perhaps measuring my waist is a better way, I'm not sure. Does anyone have any thoughts? I've read some of the articles here and I am open to doing things

more intuitively, but I'm not sure I can ditch some measure of progress altogether yet.

A question: I used to figure skate, I was very serious about it for over 10 years and used to skate 3-4 days a week as well as dancing and running. Nowadays, I hear a rather sickening sound that emanates from my knees which I assume are joint sounds, something rubbing over something else, it's a mix between a squelch and a crunch. I don't dwell on it too much, even writing about it makes the nausea rise a little (I hope I haven't made that happen for you too). It's not a loud sound and I don't have any pain with it. I assumed it was that was a sign that my knees needed some TLC after both the beating they took with skating and the injury I picked up after a brief time doing judo (slightly torn ligament). I do a lot of step aerobics and I'm always careful to keep my weight in the heels and keep a straight back with squats but I always worry, since they are still making that noise (mostly with resistance training), that I'm doing them harm.

During my active years where I was doing an activity 5-6 times a week, I did practically nothing for my arms, arm strength

was not required. With my recent exercise I've been working with dumbbells for upper and lower body. Recently I've noticed the same sound coming from my shoulder joints as comes from my knees and I know it can't be my shoulders being spent - they were barely in use for most of my life! So a newbie question - is this normal? Do I need to worry about my joints and look at ways to take care of them more?

Thanks for any help,

Tanya