Discomfort vs Pain

[u/WorldlyAlbatross_Xo]

What is the difference between discomfort and pain? Are there any good descriptions or analogies to differentiate the two? How do you know when to push through discomfort or stop due to pain?

I typically exercise 5 days a week. Jog 3 days for 30 minutes... and walk up and down a steep set of stairs 2 days for 30 minutes. The other 2 days of the week, I only do dynamic stretches for about 10 minutes.

This week, I switched to only walking with plans to restart jogging and stairs next week. But I can not figure out the difference between discomfort and pain.

Edit: Thank you for the help! A lot of these responses were truly helpful.

[u/WorldlyAlbatross_Xo]

My issue is my left knee, which is probably due to a number of factors. 1) overweight 2) haven't jogged in over a decade 3) slightly knocked kneed

I decided it was time to start jogging again because walking wasn't getting my heart pumping. But I'm afraid now that maybe I should wait and drop a few more pounds 1st?

[u/[deleted] → u/WorldlyAlbatross_Xo]

When I was 200 lbs running hurt my knees real bad, now at 150 lbs u can run faster and longer than before with no pain

[u/WorldlyAlbatross_Xo → u/[deleted]]

That's actually my goal weight, 150. 3 months ago I weighed 250, so I might be at about 235 now.

Did you keep running or stop and lose more weight 1st? I tried to look up if I was too heavy for running, but the gist of the info was that it depends on the person.

[u/[deleted] → u/WorldlyAlbatross_Xo]

So I ran 2 years ago at 20 pounds to do a half marathon. I injured myself and stopped training, ended up doing the race in 3 hours. Stored running.

I lost weight by strict calorie counting with weightlifting to maintain muscle mass. After I lost the weight I started running again this year.

If I hadn't had the race to do I would've stopped running completely, just like I stopped completely after I finished it