beginning to exercise... any suggestions?

 Hi there.

I am just starting out on my exercising, now that I have lost enough for it to not be completely painful.  I started walking 30 minutes a day and will start to add a second walk in the evenings.  My question is this... when should I add in strength training or floor type of exercises?  When do most people graduate from walking to running?  

-Sarah

Start the strength training as soon as possible. You lose muscle along with fat , and you need to keep as much muscle as possible. A few weeks into walking I started adding some short spurts of jogging in. A little more each day until I was running instead of walking.

Nate, that is what interests me I would like to be able to jog.

I seem to be in the same boat as you. Although I started walking, then stopped, then lifting some freeweights pull overs, flies for my arms, some crunches, now introducing aerobics. I get bored easily, and have lots of children that interfere with my exercise. It's going to be a challenge. I would like to start running also, what's a good weight to start and not hurt your knees, back etc?

I started running a month out from surgery.

It took me a while to have time for the strength training. But I was so happy when I started doing it. It really improved everything -- appearance, body fat %, speed in other sports, etc.