Hi All,

Today instead of lurking, I'm seeking information. I have managed to lose some weight doing Atkins and have been doing water-aerobic exercises. As I venture out into the gym to use the machines or weights or cardio equipment I keep hearing different conflicting advice for "someone who needs to lose as much as you" So today I am seeking a safe-haven for a TDC member who want's to efficiently work out but needs support. I understand there are TDC fitness challenges to join but specifically I wish we had a place where we could encourage and discuss workouts for "people my size"

I have read the general exercise forum and although there are some posts geared to us I think we have a lot of health and body-type issues that are not addressed over there. So please, if someone would point me to the right area or maybe we could have it as an additional catagory here?


Ok - I'll stop whining and just lurk around <ggggg>
thanks for listening!

ONWARD....

I second that.

Click here for the Fifth TDC Fitness Challenge. It's a lot more than a challenge; it's members of the TDC supporting each other and offering advice as we all try to get more physically active. It's not competitive like a lot of the other challenges. We all start from very different places and all our goals in the challenge are personal -- we're trying to either maintain our fitness levels or improve them, not compare ourselves to each other.

Thanks Liz
I joined the challenge and have been working out but not really posting over there. Thing is, I am having trouble finding accurate advice on how to start moving this big body without injury and knowing when I am acutally getting benefit vs. about to have a heart attack. Well that's an overstatement but in general I'm just finding that most exercise guidance is geared toward those with 40 or 50 lbs or less to lose.

I do think the TDC challenge is a great idea. Maybe it could be part of the new TDC forum! In my humble opinion, We just need to find some knowlegeable people that have come from the TDC to share their knowlege with us :-)

Onward...

First CHECK WITH YOU DOCTOR just to be safe! For what it is worth I used to weight over 300 pounds and know how hard it is to get moving. The movement of choice for me was plain old walking. Not far at the start mind you but I figured any walking was better than none. I swear there were times I thought I would keel over in the beginning but I stuck with it. I then added free weights three times a week. SLOWLY at first once again. Today I walk between 2 and five miles a day, Lift three times a week and swim a mile a day in the summer. In the last yr I went from a size 28 to a 14. A lot of time I would lose entired sizes while the scale never moved. Trust me. You do not have to do marathons to do this. Now My kness never hurt, I am never out of breath and by God I can bend over and tie my own shoes! Something I could not do before! Just take it a step at a time. Add that to the water routine you do and I promise you will see results! Fitday.com can track all this for you plus your calories or carbs or both if you count those. I know I do. Hope this helps

Kim

One thing I thought of--you could look into Curves or something like that. It's resistance training that is as hard as you make it, and very easy on the joints. They also promote a low carb diet (it's pretty much Atkins, though they've tweaked it a bit and call it the Curves diet.) I did it for a while, though I've started goint to the local gym with my fiance since we got a membership for christmas from my parents.

Kim, (I assume that's your name itmekim723) that is fabulous, what a great inspiration!

Back to the original question, maybe until there is a new forum (if the powers that be decide it's warranted) we can use this thread to that end.

Why don't you throw your questions out there and we'll start discussing them. I know I would like to have some answers specific to people at our weight too. I remember when I was trying to get some exercise at the gym last fall, I was using the treadmill and the heart rate monitor. I was trying to keep my heart rate between the fat burning zone, but just the mildest type of walking (about 3 mph) raising my heart rate up to the 85% maximum for exercise. I tried to find some answers as to what I should do, cut back my intensity so that my HR was lower, that didn't seem logical, I was comfortable at the 3.0 mph, felt like I was getting a good but not too tough workout or just ignore the HR. Never did get a satisfactory explanation.

I think we should have a thread at least for TDC exercise issues. Someone on the fitness challenge was asking about the best exercise for her particular circumstances, I think we could all help each other with questions like that here.

Valerie

Well I've been lucky to have a buddy that helps me with the motivation part and now is helping with the workout part. But what about all the people in here that don't hook up with a great mentor - where do they go?

Thing is - us bigger people have different issues - heck for me using some of the machines is awkward because of my chest being large - there has to be modifications that we can find and use. Also the debate over cardio vs. weights and when to start what confuses me. I know lots of people that go to curves but it's expensive and for what i could spend in a month there I could probably go to my community gym for 1/2 if i knew what to do when i got there <ggg>

So - yes - let's use this to post until someone resque's us and gives us a TDC trainer :-)

My local rec center gave us a free one hour training session when we signed up. Most of the weight machines at the gym are adjustable, and I can honestly say that even at my weight I haven't had problems using any of them. The trainer helped me figure out the seat adjustments, arm adjustments and proper weight level for each machine, and told me what to start out at. I started at one rep of 10 on each machine, but now do 2 reps of 8.

There are some who don't want strength training though... I'm not really as concerned with my size/weight as I am with my health, and I was a pretty muscular girl back in my healthy days. *g* If your local gym has water aerobics, I would suggest that. I do that a few times a week, and it's great fun. It also is completly safe on your joints and gives you a good combo of strength (via resistance) and aerobic training.

And yes. There is ALWAYS walking. But I find walking boring. I like my water aerobics.

Good Morning All!

This is a great question - because there isn't really much information out there for us TDCer's.

I started by simply wearing a pair of weighted walking shoes around all day. The shoes look like a regular pair of Tennis Shoes, but they have between 2 and 3.5 pounds of weight in the sole depending on the size (My big honking 13's have 3.5 pounds per shoe). I started getting benefit from the regular everyday walking I was doing due to the added resistance. Now I walk about 2 miles, 3 days a week in them at a good pace, in addition to wearing them around all day.

As I get down in weight I intend to start back into mountain biking and other workouts that are more intense. This has worked very well for me.

I love the idea of having a separate forum for us. I think the dilemma is that much of the information would be the same as for those with less to lose. Yes we do have some unique circumstances, but so does everyone else (age, height, etc.) But I'd still like it.

Recently I bought work out shirts to wear when I exercise. It's funny, but just putting on the "uniform" makes me feel better and really get more into it. And I really just work out in my living room, by myself. If you haven't tried it, it's definitely worth it.

The biggest issue I have with working out is finding that magical balance of doing enough resistance training to build the muscles some, still do enough cardio to lose the fat, and have the scale continue to move down. I think that's something we all have to work out for ourselves, but it would sure be nice to have a realistic guideline as a starting point. <sigh>

The whole deal with curves is to exercise a muscle group really hard just until it starts to get tired (About 30 seconds), because once it gets tired, there is no more benefit to continuing. Then you rest that muscle group for 1 minute while you exercise another.

30 seconds upper body, walk in place to rest for 30 seconds, 30 seconds lower body, rest for 30 seconds. The aerobic part is that you do this constantly for 30 minutes, which is the recommended amount of Aerobic activity daily.

Basically you are strength training and aerobic training at the same time.

I think it would take some time, and effort, but you could provide a home workout with the same benefits as the circuit training at curves, particularly if you own say, an ab-machine and some free weights (upper body) and a stationary bike and/or a cross-country machine (lower body).

I personally think that the cost of curves is worth it, especially if you can get in during a membership drive like I did, I didn’t have to pay the initiation fee, I just had to bring in groceries for the food bank, and then it is $30 per month.

Of course, I have to work out first thing in the morning, before my body wakes up and realizes what I am doing.

free weights don't care how big you are - no machines to fit into. just a thought ...

My mother actually lost about 25 pounds exercising with her 5 pound ankle weights. She would put them on her ankles or her arms and do different exercises until she'd worked out most of her body.