I know exactly what you mean. I always puzzle at the posts of people who don't want to exercise and are only doing it to lose weight. I'm almost the opposite -- I wanted to lose weight so I could exercise more, rather than exercising to lose weight. I have always been fairly active and athletic, but I had reached the point where I couldn't physically do what I wanted to do without losing weight.

I started out slowly, primarily with lap swimming because it did not put a lot of stress on my joints. I couldn't really start walking at all until I got down close to 300, because it hurt my back and knees too much. Over the course of the past year, I gradually built my walking up so that now I can easily hike four or five miles in hilly terrain. I even climbed up the side of a mountain while on vacation last month (two miles on a trail that was switchbacks the whole way up).

For me, consistency has been key. I try to exercise five days a week. Depending upon what is going on in the rest of my life, some weeks I exercise four days and some weeks I exercise six days, but I average five days. Whenever I reach the point where I feel the exercise I am doing is getting too easy, I up the intensity a little. I have recently started using the treadmill a couple days a week, because I can push myself further on that than just walking or swimming (the two things I have been doing up to now). I have also started occasionally doing a little bike riding which I never could have done a year ago.

You will get there, it just takes time and persistence. I was at the YMCA this morning doing the treadmill and the guy on the treadmill next to me told me how impressed he was by how long I kept going and how I kept my heart rate up. Believe me, a year ago I would not have impressed anyone. When I told the guy at the Y that I had lost over 90 pounds in the past year and that there was no way that I could have done this a year ago, he couldn't believe that it was possible to come that far in so little time. It is possible to get in shape, even starting out at a very low rate. There are success stories all over this forum (check out Chemlady).