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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
So I'm probably not in the realm of most of the people in here, but as a formerly Very Very Fat person who is down to what most of you would probably still consider Very Fat but is working on it, I've been making progress! Current diet is eating... less garbage, I suppose? Making more meals at home instead of eating out, even if they're just microwaved cans of soup. Got married and the combination of having someone to eat with and her being more organized about shopping has helped - I don't mind cooking but was always bad about keeping ingredients in the house, so with her doing the shopping, I've been able to do a lot more cooking. Down 25lbs in the last four months, just because of how bad my diet was before.
Overall down about 100lb from my lifelong peak. Aiming to take at least another 60lb off to get down to a healthier weight. For those who don't want to math, hit a peak of 410lb (six years ago), currently 310lb, target is under 250lb (In kg, 185 -> 140kg -> 110kg). 200-225lb would be more ideal, but would likely require skin removal surgery, although with the amount of weight I've lost that surgery might be necessary to avoid other problems - I have a friend who lost about 200lb and had to have the skin removal surgery, and lost another 15lb overnight in just skin, although it's an incredibly painful surgery to go through, so not something to look forward to >.<
For exercise - moved houses, and I did my own moving, so I've been carrying a LOT of stuff including up and down stairs. Plus walking the dog more consistently just to get basic cardio. Just about done with moving stuff, next plan is go get lifting. I've already got a basic squat rack (Valor Fitness BD-9), bar, and a set of basic plates from a previous fitness effort back about a decade ago. Need to decide which weight lifting starting program to do, I forget which one I was trying back then. Any recommendations? I'm really more focused on fitness and endurance than Lifting The Heaviest Possible Thing.
I usually do about 30 min of cardio then following that up with resistance training on weight machines for 30 min. Over a week I'm hitting every machine twice to get as many muscles as possible. I don't do any free weights though and I'm starting to look into adding those to my weekly routine. I think by excluding free weights I'm missing out on some good excercises I could be doing.
I've tried the machine with the pulleys to add some extra exercises, but I feel I'm too light at 140lbs to get a good workout when I'm pulling about the same weight which is why I've been sticking to the weight machines.
Is there a good resource for free weights excercises somewhere?