How 1 woman lost 80 pounds and avoided a knee replacement with pool workouts

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Almost three years ago, Debi Mitchell of St. Petersburg, Fla., wanted to help an out-of-state friend who was dealing with some health problems. “He wasn’t doing well. His wife called me, and she was crying. I jumped on a plane to be with her, but when I got there, I felt like a burden,” she tells TODAY.com.

Mitchell’s foot pain, knee pain and shortness of breath were so bad that she couldn’t walk. “My friend had to drop me off and go park the car herself. I thought, ‘What am I doing? I can’t even walk across the street,’” she says. “I was retired. I wanted to walk, and I wanted to go places.”

Back home, she told her doctor what had happened and asked for a cardiac workup. Nothing was wrong with her heart. Her weight was causing her symptoms and slowing her down. An orthopedic surgeon said she needed her knees replaced. But there was a problem: Her body mass index (BMI) was too high, so she didn’t qualify for the surgery.

Mitchell, now 68, knew she needed to do something about the pain. She found out that if she lost 10 or 12 pounds, she would qualify for knee replacement surgery. “I thought, ‘I can lose 10 pounds.’ I weighed 285, so I had so much to lose. But I found that no matter what I did, I would hit a plateau, and then I would quit,” she says.

She fell in love with pool workouts

Mitchell saw an ad for Fluid Running on Facebook, and she was intrigued. Fluid Running is a guided deep-water running program where the resistance of the water helps you build strength and avoid injury.

Mitchell had never been a runner, but she grew up in Florida and was always in the water. She had been on a swim team and competed as a synchronized swimmer when she was younger. She thought a water-based workout program might be a good choice. Plus, she already had a pool in her backyard, it would be convenient to get her exercise in at home.

The program includes a flotation belt and waterproof earbuds to listen to the workout. “I just love it when I put on the headset and hear, ‘Hello, Fluid Runners,’ from Coach Jennifer,” Mitchell says. “And just when I’m starting to slow down, she’ll say, ‘OK, I know you’re tired. Pick up your head and put your balance back up. Let’s go.’ It’s like she’s in your head.”

She built strength and stamina with water running workouts

“I started doing it, and it was a game changer for me. It was just what I needed — that coaching and encouragement and motivation. It really changed my life,” she says.

At first, Mitchell couldn’t finish the 55-minute workouts. “The first time I made it completely through, I saw there was stretching at the end. I didn’t even know that was there,” she says. “And when I did a 5K, I was so proud of myself.”

She’s been consistently doing the workouts three times a week for two and a half years. She’s lost 80 pounds so far, and her weight is dropping steadily. She’s gone from not being able to cross the street to walking up to five miles.

“An orthopedic surgeon had said to me, ‘Every pound of weight you lose takes three pounds of pressure off your knee. So as you take those pounds of pressure off your knees, you may not need a total knee replacement.’ He was right. I have not had knee surgery, and they don’t hurt anymore like they used to. That’s been true with all my joints,” she says.

Her health also improved to the point where she no longer needs medication to treat type 2 diabetes. “They wanted me to go to a diabetes class at first, but I didn’t want to go. I knew what I needed to do. I just wasn’t doing it. Now I’m doing it,” she says.

Her biggest non-scale victory? Being able to travel the world

“It sure has made retirement better. Now I want to do things. I’m at the age where I want to travel. Before, I would never walk a mile. Now, as long as it’s not over five miles, I can do it,” she says.

She’s taking a break from travel at the moment because her husband has cancer. But she lists places they’ve visited: “In the last couple of years, we’ve gone to Italy, we’ve gone to France and we went to the 24 hours of Le Mans, which is a lot of walking. We just went to Banff and Lake Louise, which is one of the most beautiful places on this earth. We did a train trip from Calgary across Canada, and one from Denver through Utah.”

Her only regret? That she didn’t make changes sooner: “Now I always say, ‘If not now, when?’ Time is going to go by whether you make changes or not. I wish I got in this mindset 20 years ago.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com