Hi everyone! I'm a 34-year-old mother of two and decided that I really need to get back into shape. It's as much for my girls as it is for me - I want them to have positive self-images and I want to be a good roll model for them. I'm not over weight per se, but I am definitely out of shape!

For example, I went for my first bike ride today since I was a kid, I think, and couldn't even make it up the smallest hill! I have a 21-speed cheapy bike, which should have helped, and I swear I tried, but I could not make it to the top! So I rode around my neighborhood, which is fairly flat, and managed 4.32 miles in 26 minutes. I intend to keep at it and my first milestone will be climbing my way to the top of that hill!

Does anyone have any words of encouragement and/or tales of when they first started that will help me laugh my way through this horrible pain?