I am purchasing the bodylastics online (ebay). I am hoping that will help with my weight training and I will continue to do my cardio on the treadmill. I am not comfortable going to a gym yet so I want to find things I can use in my home without spending a fortune. Thanks for mentioning the bodylastics and I will use my own body weight as resistance also.

jillinmo

It took me a LONG time too until I felt "ok" going to a gym too. Funny thing is that when I got there, I thought I would be embarrassed becasue there would be hundreds of 20 year old with body to die for and I would be the big fatting huffin' and puffin' along. BUT.. it is not like that. They're are very old people, very BIG people, I have even seen a guy in a wheelchair doing arm stuff. All kinds of people from all kinds of ways of life. BUT.. if you are still not ready, I bought some cheap 5 then 10 pound small barbell type weights from walmart that I did arm stuff with. The bought some leg weights to lift my legs with (like the 2-3 pound kind you strap onto you legs.) When I first started, that was all the weight I could do. When I got stronger, I then bought a cheap (like 125) dollar weight bench for my home until I was ready. Now I go to the gym, but stilll use my little weight bench a few times a week, so I don't have to drag my kids to the gym too much.

you can also do crunches and reverse crunches for your abs and hold both weights in one hand (if they are not too big) for single arm french presses to work your triceps

if you are a beginner you do not need a lot of weight, I do tapes from the firm using only 4, 6, & 8 lbs weights and am getting good results, many strength training tapes consist of the basic moves mentioned in this thread

Good point about the gym environment, DixieMamma -- in fact the reason that Bally's gyms changed its advertising recently is that the ads it had been using (18 year olds doing hip hop dance to Pink, perfect pert butts on the stairmaster, sweat glistening off the hairless abdomen of a 20-year old man-boy...ohhhhhhhhhhh...uh, where was I?) was that their research showed that it was scaring people off because they thought you already had to be in shape to go to a the gym. Now if you notice, they show older, less fit people starting new exercise programs.

I go (ok - I should go more often) to an all women's gym so I feel ok about taking off my makeup and dripping sweat everywhere. It's $16/mo so not too bad.