ideas to lose weight and exercise

I don't have the experience of the type of surgeries you've had, but there was one point in my life where I lived in an apartment without much money and in a very cold climate in the winter. My "go-to" exercise solution was buying a few exercise DVDs and rotating through them. There really are a lot of choices now days on what is available from dance-oriented to stretching to more hard core fitness exercise. I hope you can find something that works for you

Alexa137, there are a lot of exercise videos on Youtube that are for free. Pinterest is a good place to look too. Also, you might check your local library and see if they have any exercise DVDs that you can check out. There are a lot of good exercise DVDs, including walking ones like Leslie Sansone and Debra Mazda. A stability ball can be used for lots of different exercises and can give you a core workout by just staying balanced on them.

As far as not liking vegetables/fruits, I am not a big veggie lover myself but what I found is that I like fresh or frozen and not canned. I have found some recipes that make me actually like the vegetables and are really simple recipes. I have decided it wasn't really the vegetables that I didn't like but rather the way I had been eating/preparing them in the past.

Alexa--Try returning to brisk walkingt It is still the least expensive form of exercise and it's highly effective, and doing it when it's cold burns even more calories. Also, enlist a friend to walk with you when you walk. Lots of malls even have "measured miles" and many even open early for walkers.

Commenting on his clients who complain that they can't lose weight even though they exercise a lot, a physical therapist friend said he always wants to tell them, "The only sure way to lose weight is to eat less." (Of the right foods, of course, and with exercising "on the side.") The Austrians and Germans have a funny mantra for saying this--"FDH, Friss die Haelfte" -- which translates, without the linguistic humor, into "Eat half!" Since "friss" is the German word for animals' eating (like our "gobble"), maybe a funnier translation would be "Inhale half"! It really does work, though! If you have a friend who also wants to lose weight, try having some meals together and splitting one order (if you're out) or one portion (if you're cooking) and save the rest for another 1/2 meal or 2). The socializing makes the process more fun and makes dieting seem less deprivational.

NatsFan--thanks for the meatloaf idea--all of us, including the grands, eat veggies, but the idea of a multi-veggie paste appeals as a substitute for the oatmeal and tomato soup that I use. And, devil that I am, I'll use it the next time my 67-year-old brother-in-law (the stubborn kid in the family who eats ONLY corn) comes to visit!