<p>Packmom, fantastic job. That is a huge weight loss.</p>
<p>“On my indoor cycling nights, doing ab work wearing spandex/Lycra padded bib shorts is unappealing and if it’s after an hour of cycling, I’m a sweaty mess”
:)</p>
<p>Sabaray, this is a heck of a thread you started.
Thanks from me.</p>
<p>I think it is obvious that this thread has helped a lot of people.</p>
<p>When I graduated high school, I was the height I am now and weighed 118 pounds. I don’t think I can weigh 118 pounds unless I start cutting out body parts.</p>
<p>At age 25, I weighed 135 pounds, maybe 140 pounds. So if I add on 5
pounds to that, similarly to MichaelKNat, I am looking at 140 to 145
pounds. Maybe, I can get there. I am not sure. I haven’t been able to hold my weight below 150 pounds for any length of time for 29 years. I haven’t weighed less than 147 pounds for 29 years.</p>
<p>Fred Astaire, depending on what we read, weighed between 135 to 140 pounds.
MichaelKNat, Interesteddad, others,
do you still have love handles?</p>
<p>I’m hopping in this thread because I need to get back in shape. I was very underweight in high school and struggled to put it on and keep it on. Once I finally got treatment for UC, I gained weight like crazy and now I’m uncomfortable with my weight. I’m not obese but I’m uncomfortable because I don’t feel like myself. </p>
<p>I’m 6’0" and probably medium to large frame. In high school I was 140 or less depending on the week. I remember weighing in at 128 for varsity basketball and that’s when we knew something was very wrong. Now I’m around 185, down from 192 a few months ago.</p>
<p>I’d like to get down to 170 by graduation in May. I already eat very healthy, just need to get my lazy butt to exercise. </p>
<p>Does anyone have suggestions for exercises in a small apartment? I know I don’t have the motivation to go to a gym yet. At least I’m realistic.</p>
<p>I’m 5’4" and 112-115, depending on the day. I’m very happy with that. I’ve gotten up to 135 (2008) which wasn’t OK with me. It’s never too late to care about how you look.</p>
<p>Romani,
Exercise DVD’s can be good. My daughter even just youtube’s exercise videos and uses those to do exercise at night. </p>
<p>First determine what you like or are willing to start with. 15 mins? 30 mins? And what type of exercise? Floor exercises or are you more of a aerobic type (combo of dance and exercise).</p>
<p>This might be a good place to start:
[BeFiT</a> -New Workouts Every Weekday! - YouTube](<a href=“BeFiT - YouTube”>BeFiT - YouTube)</p>
<p>Start with one night. Get some comfy exercise clothes on and have some water nearby. Turn off your phone so you are not distracted. If there are other people in the house, let them know you’d prefer to not be interuppted for the period of time you are exercising. It’s YOU time!!!</p>
<p>Instensity is all relative and individual specific. My high intensity intervals the first week of exercise at 250 pounds was on a rickety old church yard sale exercise bike, belly literally bouncing off my legs. Pedal “hard” for 10 seconds. Easy for 50 seconds. Two sets of five rounds. </p>
<p>Then, I got my Airdyne and the “hard” intervals early on were 50 rpm, maybe 60 rpm, for 10 seconds. Now I do over a 100 rpm for 10 seconds. Or 70 rpm for a 90 second interval. All of those workouts are equally effective relative to my fitness at a given moment in time. That’s the nice thing: “go hard for x seconds and easy for x seconds” is universally scalable.</p>
<p>The bigger issue is that high intensity intervals are no fun at all, so they have to be limited in frequency and time. The guys whose workouts routines I generally follow ([Alwyn</a> Cosgrove](<a href=“http://www.thenewrulesoflifting.com/nrol-for-life]Alwyn”>http://www.thenewrulesoflifting.com/nrol-for-life)) have you do 10 minutes or so to finish each workout. That’s how I started out early on. However, once my three-day-a-week workouts reached 1 hour in length, I just didn’t have the gas in the tank, plus I liked doing a little something two or three days a week on my “rest” days. So now, I tend to do high intensity intervals a couple days a week on in-between days. Usually 20 to 30 minutes total, except when I walk/run a 5K once a week. That takes a little over 40 minutes. I typically run half the distance (in 12 intervals) and walk about half the distance.</p>
<p>The hikes I’ve been doing are the first time I’ve gone out and exercised for hours at a time. That’s been good to attack a different kind of conditioning and endurance. They are kind of weird hybrid workouts because going up the mountain is pretty intense exercise. I have to stop frequently. It’s very easy to peg the heart rate at 95% of max or higher, if I don’t stop. Then, the downhill is sustained low intensity cardio – steady state heart rate and breathing for an extended period.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, since there are 22,000 posts here and it is kind of hard to look up what you were doing earlier, how many pounds a week were you losing at your peak weight loss? How long did it take for you to lose 90 pounds?</p>
<p>I am glad you lost that belly flapping. Not a good picture. :)</p>
<p>My folks had an airdyne. I used it a little bit decades ago. I am having a hard time remembering what it was like.</p>
<p>Did you use the airdyne for most of your weight loss?</p>
<p>romani,
I do not know anything better than swimming. Non-pushing, leasure speed for certain time will result in much more than any other exercise for the same exact time. Well, running might beat it. But imagine running for whole hour when you can have an easy time just gliding in a water for one hour or longer. Sometime, I do not want to get out and face the world, it is just so relaxing. And you can easily study, go over your material in your head. You will be surprized how much water clears the brain and makes all solutions much easier. My D. when she was in HS, told me that she used to write papers during swim practice. This is on top of all social activities in a pool. No wonder she was so fast, all she needed was to type it.</p>
<p>I wonder if MiamiDAP wears a flowered swim cap like my mother used to wear and still keeps her head out of the water?</p>
<p>If you just float up and down the pool and never elevate your heart rate, you are NOT going to get the same benefits of other forms of exercise. I’m sure it is wonderful and relaxing, but it is not going to serve most people (MiamiDAP reports on being 20 pounds overweight despite 3 hours a day of exercise).</p>
<p>I averaged 1.75 to 2.0 pounds a week for the first 70 pounds, pretty steadily, then the curve flattened. I thought I was probably done at 180 pounds (70 pounds lost, which was my “in my wildest dreams goal”). That’s right around the time that I started doing more intense strength workouts ([New</a> Rules of Lifting for Abs](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583334602]New”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583334602)) and the remaining 20 pounds came off over a six month period when I really didn’t have any particular weight loss goals. At that point, I was exercising just to become more fit.</p>
<p>I still have “love handles” with no shirt – not visible with a shirt. I’m right on the verge of having visible abs, but I’m not quite low enough in body fat for that. Plus, I’m 58 years old and I used to weigh 250 pounds, so I’m never going to have taut stretched skin, I’m afraid! I’m realistic.</p>
<p>Speaking of “abs” workouts, I was really lucky that the first guy whose exercise program I followed had a major focus on core training. So I did plank one day and side plank the next in my very first two workouts, week one, at 250 pounds and have done a significant core component (10 to 20 minutes on average) in every workout, three days a week since. I’ve done a little less of it with my current workout program, but I plan to jump back in with an intense core effort to start the new year. Probably going to do [iPod</a> nazi’s crazy hard core program](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKtA5NZmX3c]iPod”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKtA5NZmX3c) for the second time. I think I’ve made some gains and it will be interesting to see how I do compared to the first time.</p>
<p>Modified weights today. Had to leave off a few things due to the pains. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical, and it didn’t hurt. Walking hurts, but I have to go to work and walk a lot today!</p>
<p>That ipod nazi core workout looks interesting. I do some of those exercises now, but I’d like to change it up a little.</p>
<p>It’s actually a sad day in the Airdyne community. Schwinn just discontinued the original Airdyne (introduced in the 1970s) and has replaced it with a new model. We’ll see if that sticks or if they are forced to bring back the big fan…</p>
<p>Here’s a very fit 25 year old coach at Mike Boyle’s gym doing 4 minutes on an Airdyne. This is a ridiculously hard “Tabata” set: 20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy for 8 rounds. The work to rest ratio is way too high on Tabatas and you can see that at the end of the 4 minutes, he’s about to collapse. I did a set of them once just to see what it was like, but for 20 second intervals, I need 40 seconds to recover in between or my heart rate just stays pegged.</p>
<p>The Airdyne sucks the air right out of your lungs. It’s very high resistance at fast speeds and you are working big lower body and big upper body muscles simultaneously, which is a guaranteed recipe for getting bent over panting like a dog. Same as the “combo” excercises like burpees or squat presses.</p>
<p>The nice thing about the Airdyne is that it’s completetly automatic and self adjusting for intervals. Doesn’t matter if you are an NFL player or an 85 year old granny. Pedal faster to work hard, pedal slower to recover. No adjustments. No resistance settings. The stronger you are, the faster your “work” intervals will be, but it’s all relative.</p>
<p>I pretty much hate the thing, but we are getting into the meat of the Airdyne season!</p>
<p>It’s a 12 week program. New workout every week, 20 to 30 minutes. Do each workout three times in a week, then move on to the next one. I’ve got 'em all loaded in my iPod. All I need to do is hit play. I usually watch the video version one time to start the week, then just follow along with the iPod version. I was really proud that I did all 36 workouts without ever hitting the PAUSE button to catch my breath the first time. I’ve made some gains in hip strength since last year and I know I’m better at some of these kinds of exercises like the hip lifts and the bird dogs.</p>
<p>That sounds about right. It’s so predictable and repeatable that there must be some specific physiological changes that occur after the first five to ten minutes of elevated heart rate and breathing.</p>
<p>IMO the key to being consistent with exercise is to find exercise activities that you really enjoy and make a commitment to do them. For the last 3 years, I’ve managed to exercise 4-6 days a week for at least an hour a day. I get bored, so I like to do different things. I’ve found that spinning, walking, weight training, yoga, TRX, and kettle bell workouts are my favorites. I don’t like swimming and won’t swim unless it’s the only thing available for me. I’m not crazy about exercise bikes or rowing machines, but like working out on the elliptical and the treadmill. I’d also rather work with free weights than use the weight machines at the gym. </p>
<p>It was helpful for me to work with a personal trainer when I started out doing weight training because I thought it was important to learn proper form. Now, I don’t feel like I need a trainer. I also like classes because I find it easier to get myself out of the house if there’s a class I can take. It’s also important to make the commitment to exercise because it’s really easy to blow it off when life gets in the way. One thing that helps me is to keep a log of my exercise; I have a heart rate monitor and a Fitbit (which measures calories burned, steps,etc.) to help me do this. Good luck. There’s lots of good advice on this thread.</p>