I am sensing that I am using too much supplemental oxygen as I walk on my treadmill.

This is a pretty serious accusation so I have laid out the following reasons why I believe this to be true:
1. I am not able to walk as fast now (without getting severely short of breath) as I could 3 months ago- even though I walk 60 minutes a day, 7 days a week.
2. My heart rate does not go up as I exercise.
3. The amount of oxygen in my blood as measured with an oximeter is very high: 96 to 98% most of the time.
4. When my heart rate does not increase, less carbon dioxide is removed from my body. I can not measure this, I can feel it.
5. It is not logical to me to try to train my body to become more efficient in the use of oxygen by giving it more than it needs. It seems more likely that I can help my body use oxygen more efficiently by lowering the amount I give it toward the minimum safe level of 90%.

I have lowered my supplemental oxygen use from 4 liters per minute to 3 liters per minute.

This change has lowered the measured oxygen in my blood as I exercise from 96-98% to 92-93%.

My heart rate has again begun to rise as I walk and I am not getting as short of breath.

Now I will be trying to slowly increase the speed of the treadmill in hopes of improving my conditioning.

My continual primary goal is to walk 60 minutes a day, 7 days a week regardless of how poorly I might feel on a particular day.

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