The Quest to Get in Shape!

[22psi]

I just turned 30 and boy am I starting to "feel" the age. Work kicks my butt taking up much of my time, then there's the fiance, family, other responsibilities to take care of. I haven't worked out in about 3 years and prior, I used to work out 4-5 days a week. During that time, I've lost about 15-20lbs of muscle mass and gained about 10 lbs of pure unadulterated fat. I now weight a paltry 148lbs and am about 5'9" tall so I am definitely not fat or anything but seriously out of shape.

My promise to myself is to get back into shape. I know in a few years, I will have kids and want to be able to fully enjoy that experience and be able to play and take care of them, so this is my motivation. I started to go back to the gym about 2 weeks ago trying to take it slow but almost passed out the first few times just doing basic stuff like running, biking, and lifting very lightly. I used to be able to max bench 225lbs and now I am doing ~105

My goal simply is to get back into shape, not to get buff or anything but looking/being fit is where I want to be. Being older, my body sure struggles against losing flab and gaining muscle more.

In any case, I wonder if some of you can resonate with me and are/have been in my situation. What are/were some of the struggles you went through? What kept up your motivation? Where are you now? Thanks.

 

[_xxx_]

Get a Wii with Wii sports, it seriously helped fight my laziness. Easy for motivation and really painless.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Lift weights and do exercises with high pulse levels, that'll get you in shape, pay attention to your diet and make sure you get enough sleep and rest between workouts, start lightly and gradually increase the resistance that way you won't burn out so easily and maybe it'll help you stick with the plan. As for the motivation, results bring motivation.

Your muscle and strenght loss sounds really steep, are you sure about those figures, how do you measure muscle loss. it's quite hard to lose that much muscle unless your eating habits have been really messed up I'm assuming you haven't taken any hormones when you trained as those kind of losses (or bigger) are usually seen on that road...

Anyways it's always a good decision to get in shape, best of luck and iron will! :smile:

 

[Gelanin]

And in many ways the most important thing.... manage to keep doing it after several months

Thats where i failed miserabely last time i decided it was time to loose some weight, which wasnt the hard part... hard part was not gaining them again after 6'ish months

Good luck!

 

[Dresden]

Ugh this reminds me of a certain instance today, where while in the middle of my lunch break from work whilst racing to get my copy of "The Shivering Isles," I jogged slightly up some stairs. I'm 23 years old and a buck fifty, yet I noticed, some distance from the stairs, I was out of breath, like I just ran a marathon. I tend to use eight years of smoking as my scapegoat, but I've long since quit and that excuse is losing it's value almost everyday. I really am an out of shape mess.

 

[zed]

exercise is quite easy to get out of (u find excuses)
at the moment im walking to + from work each day (1 hours each way with a couple of hills on route, walkings not hard) and u cant say to yourself halfway thats far enuf for today

 

[Humus]

I know in a few years, I will have kids and want to be able to fully enjoy that experience and be able to play and take care of them, so this is my motivation.

Just get the kids already. That'll be your exercise!

 

[RobertR1]

Honestly, bust your ass and push yourself. I can't say this enough. I've seen people in the gym, year after year doing the same comfortable routine with minimal progress. I'm one of those people that if I don't see progress, i don't see any point to continue. The way to progress is to shock your body and make it adapt.

Alter your routine, change exercises, one week do heavy lifting with low reps and minimal cardio and the next week, do light weight/high reps/high cardio. Change the actual exercise around to hit the muscle from different angles and stress point. Keep your body guessing and it'll respond. Just don't get stuck in a comfortable routine.

Just doing weights alone you can build up quite a sweat and leave you breathing heavy or you can get done and barely feel like you've worked out. Your choice. Cardio is the icing on the cake so to speak. Get the muscle worked out first and then tone it up.

 

[rashly]

The most important thing is diet. Instead of 3 big meals in a day, eat 5 or 6 smaller meals to keep your metabolism going. No fast food or garbage like that. If you're doing a lot of lifting, try to eat about a gram of protein per pound of body weight. Personally, I just try to eat healthy and eat a lot of meat during the day. No need to really be OCD over it.

Eat protein before a workout and protein and carbs afterwards. Low carb diets are bad for you, so be sure to get some in your diet (less carbs if you're cutting, more if you're bulking).

Lifting weights is the best physical workout for getting in shape. Cardio only burns calories when you're doing the cardio but lifting burns calories all day long while you're building the muscles back up. Cardio is great, however, for things like stamina and your heart.

When lifting, be sure to give your muscles enough rest to heal. A lot of people won't see results because they are over-working themselves. If you work out a muscle to full physical exhaustion it'll usually take between 5-10 days to heal. So try not to do dips for your shoulders 2 days after doing a tricep workout. Your triceps won't be getting enough time to heal.

Good form is very important. Better to lift less weight with better form than a lot of weight with crappy form. That's how you get hurt and you get a bad workout. We've all seen those guys at the gym that look like they're gonna do a backflip while doing curls. Try to improve every week at the gym. Even if it's just 1 more rep at the same weight, that's an improvement over the week before. Generally the 8-12 rep range is best for body building (strength training less, endurance training more). Be sure to do as many reps as physically possible by your body, in that range (after a week you'll know what amount of weight to put on). Start your workouts with compound exercises and do specific muscle exercises at the end.

Bodybuilding.com has information (pics, videos) on how to do a lot of different workouts. It helped me a lot when I started going to the gym. Build a good routine and stick to it for a while. You can always change it up after a month or two and try different exercises. Don't look at the big picture, just look at it day by day. Give it your all every day and it'll add up.

 

[StefanS]

Bodybuilding.com has information (pics, videos) on how to do a lot of different workouts. It helped me a lot when I started going to the gym. Build a good routine and stick to it for a while. You can always change it up after a month or two and try different exercises. Don't look at the big picture, just look at it day by day. Give it your all every day and it'll add up.

Seconded. Bodybuilding.com is definitely a good place to start. Moreover, try keeping an exercise log. It really helps keeping up the motivation. Moreover, you can monitor your progress.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

I just turned 30 and boy am I starting to "feel" the age. Work kicks my butt taking up much of my time, then there's the fiance, family, other responsibilities to take care of. I haven't worked out in about 3 years and prior, I used to work out 4-5 days a week. During that time, I've lost about 15-20lbs of muscle mass and gained about 10 lbs of pure unadulterated fat. I now weight a paltry 148lbs and am about 5'9" tall so I am definitely not fat or anything but seriously out of shape.

My promise to myself is to get back into shape. I know in a few years, I will have kids and want to be able to fully enjoy that experience and be able to play and take care of them, so this is my motivation. I started to go back to the gym about 2 weeks ago trying to take it slow but almost passed out the first few times just doing basic stuff like running, biking, and lifting very lightly. I used to be able to max bench 225lbs and now I am doing ~105

My goal simply is to get back into shape, not to get buff or anything but looking/being fit is where I want to be. Being older, my body sure struggles against losing flab and gaining muscle more.

In any case, I wonder if some of you can resonate with me and are/have been in my situation. What are/were some of the struggles you went through? What kept up your motivation? Where are you now? Thanks.

Hi 22psi,

I'm 26 now and used to lift weights when I was in highschool. I stopped once I hit college. I kept pretty trim for a couple of years but once I turned 24-25 I was starting to put on a spare tire (especially once I graduated and started a desk job!). Last spring I decided to try getting back in shape and got a Y membership. It was going "ok", but I was having a lot of trouble working up the motivation to get out to the gym and go through all the hassle. After a couple of months I ended up buying a weight bench and a bunch of Olympic weights from a friend of mine and couldn't be happier I made the purchase. It's much much easier for me to hit the bench regularly with it at home. I ended up canceling my Y membership as I was never going any more.

When I started, I was just doing bench presses, but over time I worked in many other exercises (standing bicep curls, leg extensions, various back and stomach exercises, etc). Initially my goal was to just get back to lifting the weight I could do in highschool which was about 10 reps at 150lbs. Once I hit that, I decided I wanted to be able to bench press my own weight (only 10lbs more). I've now hit that, and my new goal is to get my six-pack back. For the last couple of months I've been working cardio (we have an old nordictrak) into my workout. I try to do a half an hour on my weights days, and an hour on my off days. I don't always have time to get a full hour in, but over all it's working quite well. When I was just doing weight training I pretty much stayed at a constant weight, but lost fat and gained a lot of muscle. Now I've lost nearly 10 pounds (169lbs -> 160lbs) and it has been all fat and it shows. I'm getting close to having my six pack again. I've got definition in my stomach that I haven't had for years. It's exciting.

Given that you've done weights before I'm sure you know all the standard advice already. I will say this though: don't over do it, and don't worry about starting out small again. When I started bench pressing last spring I started with 3 sets of 10 reps at 85lbs, and within 3-4 months I was back up to ~145lbs. I'm now doing 10 reps at 160lb, but my growth has slowed down quite a bit as I can't have my pregnant wife spot for me and I have to be careful about how hard I push it.

At least for me, every two or three months I go through a period were it gets really hard to keep up. Between weight plateaus, busy times in my life, being sick, house work, etc it can be easy to lapse. If you screw up and don't lift for a week or two (or even a month or two like me last fall!), don't dwell on it. Just get back in there and keep going. My best motivation has been to set goals for myself and work to meet them. The six pack is my latest goal. I'm not sure what the next one will be. Maybe double the amount of weight I bench press since I started (new goal: 170lbs), or double the amount of weight that I started out doing bicep curls (new goal: 40lbs).

Anyway, I can definitely say that it worth it. I feel better than I have in years. My back doesn't ache as much from work. I'm much happier with how I look.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Blazkowicz]

I can suggest a bicycle and swimming

(/edit : should have read better you're already biking. the imperial units were annoying me)

 

[V3]

Keep it simple. Start with dead lift, once you can dead lift your body weight, add squat to your routine. While working your dead lift to twice your body weight. Once you can squat your body weight, add standing vertical press. Work your way to Dead lift three times your body weight, and squat more than double your body weight and standing vertical press at more than your body weight.

Other good excercises to supplement those 3 main ones are

Incline bench press ( work your way to at least 1.5x body weight)
Barbell row ( at least 1.5x)
Weighted Chin-up at medium or close grip
Weighted Dip
Barbell curl ( at least 1x )
Calf Raises ( Max weight, preferably something heavy 500+ lbs )
Incline Leg Press (Can be substitute for squat, you can really move weight with this thing, aim for 1000+ lbs)

Your training time should be around 30 to 45 minutes, not including warm up and cool down.

From my experience the best way to calculate the intensity of your work out is,

weight (lbs/kg) x reps / time (minutes or seconds if you have stop watch)

You want that number to go up as you progress.

Eat healthy, don't forget to drink water and visualise the results, don't underestimate the power of the mind.

Good Luck.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

My goal simply is to get back into shape, not to get buff or anything but looking/being fit is where I want to be.

Work your way to Dead lift three times your body weight, and squat more than double your body weight and standing vertical press at more than your body weight.

Other good excercises to supplement those 3 main ones are

Incline bench press ( work your way to at least 1.5x body weight)
Barbell row ( at least 1.5x)
Weighted Chin-up at medium or close grip
Weighted Dip
Barbell curl ( at least 1x )
Calf Raises ( Max weight, preferably something heavy 500+ lbs )
Incline Leg Press (Can be substitute for squat, you can really move weight with this thing, aim for 1000+ lbs)

I'm sure that's what he was lookin for...

 

[John Reynolds]

I'm sure that's what he was lookin for...

I was going to say. . .I'm a pretty strong guy, but doing 300 lbs on an incline bench press is a bit much for just about anyone.

My advice? Alternate weights and cardio, doing different exercises as much as possible. Take one day off each week to let your body recover, no exercise on that day at all. Eat healthy, watch your calories, try to balance your protein and carbs, and eat at least 5/day. If you want to build muscle, get plenty of sleep. Drink lots of water.

 

[Matrix0507]

I'm 23 and pretty goddamned out of shape...I'm not really motivated at all, but one thing i have been doing pretty well for the past 2 or 3 weeks is eating better. IE: cutting portions in half and eating better things. Could that alone be enough for me right now to overall improve my health (read: i am not looking to become a model or anything, just become healthier)

 

[Nite_Hawk]

I'm 23 and pretty goddamned out of shape...I'm not really motivated at all, but one thing i have been doing pretty well for the past 2 or 3 weeks is eating better. IE: cutting portions in half and eating better things. Could that alone be enough for me right now to overall improve my health (read: i am not looking to become a model or anything, just become healthier)

Everything helps. Eating a balanced diet is one component to living a healthy life. I'd still recommend doing some kind of regular exercise, but that shouldn't discourage you from eating well. Be careful not to overdo it. You want to make sure that you aren't causing your metabolism to drop.

Nite_Hawk

 

[standing ovation]

Get a long leash, find a park or trail, and start walking your dog. Let your pet set the pace. I know. It is so not Dog Whisperer. But it'll get you into cardio shape in no time!