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"I was just telling these guys, I started out with eight-pound dumbbells, and that was
about all I could lift at the time. That was back in March. I have worked my way up now
to doing just about every exercise in here, using every machine. I don't use the same
amount of weights as other people do, but I do what's comfortable for me, and it's just
really working for me." "I'm a diabetic, and I've had a lot of structural
problems with ribs, back, sciatica, you name it. Last year, from September to January of
this year, I was in a wheelchair most of the time and really couldn't take care of myself.
My wife had to more or less do everything for me because I'd gotten so weakened. One
week, I fell seven times in one week." "For six weeks, they worked on my hip, and
got me started on the stretchy bands, and from there I progressed from there to here,
at their suggestion. They said, Just keep doing the same exercises, and I've been doing
them. Now I'm in a strengthening program for the core muscles. I'm doing full-body workouts,
but mainly the core muscles for balance." "I came here in March with a cane, and here
it is July, and I don't have any cane anymore." "I hope that you'll be inspired. Believe me,
when you get down to the point where you couldn't even lift five pounds of sugar, couldn't walk
without help, couldn't use the bathroom without help, if it hadn't been for the recliner,
I'd have been in bed. I'm here to tell you that exercise really is a health benefit.
It gets you out of the doldrums of bad health and everything else. And you don't have to
be a superman. That's not the point. The point is, do something. Move your arms, move your
legs. Get into a program, and we've got a lot of programs here that are offered to the
members that get you moving. That's the main thing. You have to ... it's the old adage,
you don't use it, you lose it." "If you're out there, and you're down, and
you're physically bound up, just start taking off with doing something small. Just do something
small. Get some instruction. Make sure it's cleared with your doctor. Don't do something
that you shouldn't do. But, move. M-O-V-E." "That's it. And that's what I couldn't do
back at the last of last year and the first of this year. But by March, I'd started, and
here I am, and as I said, I'm a walking, talking miracle. I can't hardly believe it myself,
that I'm standing here without a cane, and not having the back problems that I'd had.
I couldn't go to a market or a store and walk with the cane. I had to ride in one of those
little electric carts. And for somebody who's been as active as I have all of my life, that's
kind of a blow to your ego." "You can get out of the electric carts that
they have, and you can get off your crutches and your canes, if you just move. Try it.
Exercise. Do something. Don't just sit down or lie down and become a victim of your condition."