<p>Hah. Tell her not to feel bad. I couldn’t handle your weights, either! But, the great thing is that you’ve set the bar for me to shoot for! When I’m struggling to do one more rep, I think, “come on, buddy… Teriwitt could lift this in her sleep!”</p>
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<p>It drives the good trainers nuts because “doing cardio” and “ab work” are probably the two least effective workouts a young person could do. I put a lot of the blame on meathead guys for giving weight lifting a bad name. A college age female would get fit and toned so fast doing proper weight training. It’s not like us ol’ geezers who are fighting a rear guard action against the inevitable decline of muscle mass. Trainers like Mike Boyle get fantastic results with the high school and college female athletes in their programs.</p>
<p>In her book, Rachel Cosgrove asks her readers to just stop “doing cardio” completely and focus exclusively on three good days a week of strength training to kick start their fitness and weight loss programs. Boyle uses “cardio” for old fat guys who need to walk on the treadmill for a few weeks just to get fit enough to even begiin working out.</p>
<p>I think a lot of it is that people are looking for “workout” where they won’t have to sweat. I realized right away that I was never going to find a workout easy enough for that to happen! Cosgrove has it right. “If you want to look like a fox, you’ve got to sweat like a pig…”</p>
<p>idad, let me join the chorus of support for your success! 70 pounds and incredible fitness gains–I’m proud of you and you continue to be an inspiration to me! I’m blessed to have a very suppportive family; turns out they were afraid I was about to die. Nice that they want me around.</p>
<p>D really enjoyed the workout yesterday, except when she had to run out to the locker room to throw up. We did high intensity intervals, so lots of weights, squats, planks, elliptical, but no burpees, alas.</p>
<p>I admit that I am guilty of “doing cardio”. It is what has worked for me and I am dripping with sweat every work out. I do weights about 3 times a week but not heavy weights. I usually do the machines and average 50-60 lbs on the upper body machines. I recently started on pushups and have seen good progress along with lifting plates for shoulder and arms. I know I need to head over and do the dumb bells but somehow I am not consistent with that.</p>
<p>I am one in need of help to stop the snacking. I am not exercising as much and it seems to make the difference. In the past in the afternoon I would head out for my walk when the afternoon snack urge hit.
2nd week of physical therapy. I really like the PT. He seems to know what he is doing. He feels I am carrying all my weight on one side of my body. Lots of painful psoas work. Monday he put me on the bike for 10 minutes and I really could tell how I depend on my left leg and the right one is definitely weaker. Confirms why I am having such a problem going right in my tennis game. Working on the lower back as well. The pain is coming from the area where I have the cyst and the pars stress fracture. My concern is that like my massage therapist they can get rid of the pain temporarily but as soon as I start exercising again the pain will come back since the cause of the problem is unclear.
I went for a brisk hilly walk on sat and tried running a small portion. The walking and definitely the running causes my back and hip to flare up.
If I don’t do much of anything the pain is manageable. I don’t want to settle for that.
I am up 2 lbs which I should be happy about. Without exercise and with my eating getting a bit out of control I should consider myself lucky.
Feeling a bit sorry for myself.
Another person on this thread who has lost 30 lbs and H has not said much.</p>
<p>Idad, I think that’s kind of sad about your wife. I would be so happy if my H would work out. He needs to lose some weight, but he works such long hours so I understand why he doesn’t. He is very supportive of me though, and has always been my biggest cheerleader in anything I do. </p>
<p>My d is the rare college age girl who has no fear of walking into the weight room at school and just doing her thing. She’s tried to get some friends to go with her, but they don’t feel comfortable. I think it’s more that they don’t know what to do with weights rather than being uncomfortable working out with all the guys. D took a weight training class in high school (she had to take P.E. and couldn’t stand the do-nothing regular class.) so she’s used to being the only girl in the weight room.</p>
<p>We support you mom60! Thirty pounds is great!!! Yay! Hardly any of my friends said anything until I lost 40 pounds. Now everyone comments…but I still have more to go! I just had to do this for myself so I could physically feel better. I know what it is like to be in pain. Don’t settle for anything less than what you can manage. You can do this!</p>
Add my D to that rare few. As a personal trainer certified in Metabolic Effect, weights are a big part of her own routine and what she does with clients. As a 10 year competitive gymnast, she has always been strong. Way back in 5th grade she blew away all the boys on the Presidential Fitness test, and the Phys Ed teacher (a guy) was a little taken back that he had to award her the “Best of the Best” prize at the end of the school year.</p>
<p>My H is supportive of my working out, but won’t join me. I cook “healthy,” and he’s fine with that, but all bets are off when we go out. He does get a little annoyed sometimes when I won’t order the appetizer and dessert – he laughs when I tell him I just can’t eat as much as he does. For the most part I ignore him and stay the course. He could really stand to lose about 40 lbs. but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Unfortunately it will take a major health scare to get him to take action.</p>
<p>There’s no such thing as bad exercise! I “do cardio” two or three days a week, either walking or riding the Airdyne exercise bike. I think “doing cardio” is especially useful for those of us who are – ahem – a little older and a little more “portly”. Frankly, I needed the cardiovascular fitness improvment just to be able to walk a mile without being winded. Walking has certainly been an important part of my improved fitness.</p>
<p>For young people, though… climbing on a treadmill or an elliptical and pounding out an hour of long slow distance really isn’t giving them much bang for the exercise buck.</p>
<p>Mike Boyle says, if it hurts, don’t do it. Exercise is not suppose to hurt (except for the general muscle soreness after a workout, not specific to any particular joint, that goes away after 24 hours). Anything causing specific pain, don’t do it. I wouldn’t even think about running until you can walk pain free.</p>
<p>As I’ve started trying these various squats that isolate one leg, I’ve seen a fairly noticeable imbalance, too. What I’ve started doing is 3 reps on my weak leg for every 2 reps on my stronger leg. Over time, this should slowly bring things into balance.</p>
<p>iDad- I still can’t do the one legged hamstring curl with the ball, but I can do a tiny bit of one, and I can do the release motion. I am definitely getting some strength back in that hamstring. I think it must be the magnetic bracelet I bought in Las Vegas. :)</p>
<p>OK, so I was still so sore from iPod nazi on Monday that I couldn’t do that workout again today. So I cranked out two sets of Spartacus, but I upped the ante. </p>
<p>For the first time, I didn’t throw in an extra 60 seconds rest after the fifth exercise in each set. So it was all 10 exercises, then 2 minutes rest, then all ten execises again.</p>
<p>And, if that wasn’t enough, I cranked up the weights on the second set. I went from 20 pounds to 23.5 pounds on the goblet squat, the one-arm dumbell swing (a huge difference), and the lunges with side twist. I went from 23.5 pounds to 28.5 pounds on the one-arm rows. And, I cranked the squat and pressing two dumbells from 20 pounds to 23.5 pounds (another big difference – ouch).</p>
<p>That’s with 8 and 8 good t-pushups (Svetlana would be proud!) and 20 and 20 pushup position dumbbell rows.</p>
<p>41 minutes with 10 minutes of Airdyne warmup/cooldown. Average heart rate 74%. Max 97%, which had to be on the 10th squat & dumbbell press at the end of the second set. Ten was all I had. I think I’m going to have some sore shoulders tomorrow.</p>
<p>My problem is that I have to cheat that exercise by flailing my leg that’s up in the air all over the place to keep my balance. It probably looks ridiculous, but (fortunately) I can’t see myself. Even the two leg version (lifting one leg up while the ball is rolled in and then putting it back for the roll out) is really hard.</p>
<p>You should see me try to do pushups with one leg on the stabilty ball. It’s like I’ve got 13 seconds before I collapse in a heap, so try to do as many as I can. This one-sided stuff is really hard. Just goes to show how much we cheat and favor one leg or the other in so many activities. I can’t believe how hard a one-arm dumbbell press on the stability ball is.</p>
<p>Mom60:</p>
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<p>I hear ya. I believe that exercising before dinner is a big help for me to fend off a big snack temptation. There’s something about a good workout that makes it easier to not put on the feedbag. You can always try on your thermometer jeans. Or better yet after losing 30 pounds… wear them. That will give a little anti-snack jolt, too!</p>
<p>chintzy:</p>
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<p>Now, that’s hard core. I won’t push myself that far. When I start feeling light headed or quesy, I know it’s time to stop. These exercise circuits can do it to you, though. Especially for someone trying to jump in and hang on like that.</p>
<p>Ugh…snowing again and H took my 4 wheel drive truck and left me with his little sports car that is terrible in the snow. That means no trip to the gym for me. Will have to come up with some at home routine. Guess I can’t avoid core exercises today! Will do some light weights too since that is what I have. If I can figure out how to turn the wii on I might be able to do something with that. I am terrible with remotes!</p>
<p>I can’t believe the ol’ (formerly) fat guy is wearing a sausage casing fitness shirt. I found this at TJ Maxx the other day. It’s like an Under Armor mock turtle – very stretchy material, a little thicker than a standard tech t. Sold as a surfer shirt/quasi wet suit kind of thing:</p>
<p>I kinda liked the blue color and it’s actually comfy under a fleece on a chilly day. With a shirt like this, I might have to find a mirror to lift some weights in front of, just like a real meat head!</p>
<p>I found a solution for standing in lines, which are Hell on my back. I try to avoid lines, of course, but tis the season to be standing in them. I shift my weight from one leg to the other, holding my one foot just slightly off the ground. I try to hold for about 30 seconds, then I switch. For some reason my back likes it, it gives me something to think about in line (besides how slow the blasted line is moving!) and, what the heck, I’m going to count it as a little extra exercise!</p>
<p>Thought I’d share…I like ideas that cost nothing and work!</p>
<p>Sunny and about a 9 mph breeze in New England today, so I figured I’d take advantage of the nice weather for a little 5k walk, even though it is 32 degrees. Polartec long johns (top and bottom), running pants, a mid-weight long sleeve t-shirt, and my dorky neon yellow reflective Brooks running jacket – fleece gloves and fleece cap. Just about right. A little chilly out of the gate, but I was pushing the pace and worked up a pretty good sweat once I hit the hills.</p>
<p>The nice runner lady who lives in my iPod said it was my fasted 5K ever!</p>
<p>I averaged 15.55 per mile (3.76 mph) with all of the miles between 15:47 and 15.57. I was really pushing it on the dirt and gravel in the state park for the middle mile. You can really see the hills on the trace:</p>
<p>In PA for my brother’s memorial service. Got out this afternoon on the beautiful trail (pretty flat) for an hour low heart rate run. Ave. 131 with frequent blips over 135 due to slight upgrades and me just having trouble staying slow. 13:18 pace (wow…aren’t I blazing! ) Daughter ran 6 miles under 60 minutes and was really pleased. Remember-she really just got interested in running after she and I did the half marathon in September. She also was amazing singing at the memorial service. There were snow flurries while we were running, which was sort of neat.</p>
) Daughter ran 6 miles under 60 minutes and was really pleased. Remember-she really just got interested in running after she and I did the half marathon in September. She also was amazing singing at the memorial service. There were snow flurries while we were running, which was sort of neat.</p>