Last Sunday I was 200.8. I lost most of the 2.2 pounds I gained the week before. 5 pounds to reach a new low. I want to lose about 16 pounds total. This should get me to my goal of an under 40'' raw waist measurement. It was a small fraction of an inch over 41'' today, and I lost a few fractions of an inch over the last week.

I want my chest to still be about 42'' when I reach my goal, but I only have so much control over that. Hopefully I don't lose too much more muscle if I keep training hard.

Cutting my blood pressure meds in half has reduced my cravings at night and I should be able to lose 1-2 pounds per month.

(July 22, 2018 at 6:10 pm)emjay Wrote: I'm currently at 13 stone 4 lbs, (186 lbs) which has gone above the range I'm comfortable with - between 12 and 13 stone - since I quit smoking nearly eight days ago... and since then my appetite has been pretty insatiable... putting on about 5lbs in just a few days... so I decided I've simply got to get fit at the same time as this quitting. So three days ago started using my old exercise bike... for a twenty minute workout each day... with the aim to do it six days a week and eventually get up to doing 45 mins a day... as I managed maybe a decade ago when I was at least relatively fit (exercise bike for 45 mins six days a week, upper body exercises three days a week, a fixed and rigid diet covering all the food groups, and with protein powder on my cereal... until I got ill after about six months of that, and since that broke my routine, unfortunately I never went back to it after I recovered from my illness.) I miss that... I remember feeling really good then, and proud of my slowly increasing fitness levels and musculature. But now I'm very unfit, not just because of smoking but also because of two health problems that both restricted my movement in one way or another... basically leading to me giving up on exercise altogether. But now it's time to give it another go and see how well I fare as a non-smoker (hopefully it will be easier and I'll get further). At the moment 20 mins is enough for me on the bike but I hope to do what I did before and just gradually increase the length of time I'm on it as he weeks go by until I get to, or beyond, 45 minutes... which I remember as a very satisfying but hard workout. As to the upper body I have no idea yet what I want to do and can't remember exactly what I did before... I think it was pressups, situps, and dumbbell curls, raises, and flyes. Any suggestions by anyone on a simple upper body exercise routine for a beginner would be much appreciated I don't wanna look like Arnie I just want to get some tone and lose weight... just do on my upper body whatever equivalent of toning would happen for my legs through biking... probably just lots of reps of a low strength activity... where I can just gradually increase the reps over time.

For someone new you probably want to focus on movements that use more than one joint, These build the most size the most efficiently. Also my personal advice would be minimal amount of sets, and lots of rest between workouts. Also high intensity. Move the weight until you can't get another rep, no matter how much it burns.

Also, if you have some sort of issue where you it's difficult to train your lower body, there are probably ways around that. I have degenerative disc disease and I do dumbbell squats instead of barbell squats for my thighs. Balanced physiques are a good thing and lower body strength helps you out in life more than you'd think.

(July 26, 2018 at 7:51 am)The Industrial Atheist Wrote:

(July 22, 2018 at 6:10 pm)emjay Wrote: I'm currently at 13 stone 4 lbs, (186 lbs) which has gone above the range I'm comfortable with - between 12 and 13 stone - since I quit smoking nearly eight days ago... and since then my appetite has been pretty insatiable... putting on about 5lbs in just a few days... so I decided I've simply got to get fit at the same time as this quitting. So three days ago started using my old exercise bike... for a twenty minute workout each day... with the aim to do it six days a week and eventually get up to doing 45 mins a day... as I managed maybe a decade ago when I was at least relatively fit (exercise bike for 45 mins six days a week, upper body exercises three days a week, a fixed and rigid diet covering all the food groups, and with protein powder on my cereal... until I got ill after about six months of that, and since that broke my routine, unfortunately I never went back to it after I recovered from my illness.) I miss that... I remember feeling really good then, and proud of my slowly increasing fitness levels and musculature. But now I'm very unfit, not just because of smoking but also because of two health problems that both restricted my movement in one way or another... basically leading to me giving up on exercise altogether. But now it's time to give it another go and see how well I fare as a non-smoker (hopefully it will be easier and I'll get further). At the moment 20 mins is enough for me on the bike but I hope to do what I did before and just gradually increase the length of time I'm on it as he weeks go by until I get to, or beyond, 45 minutes... which I remember as a very satisfying but hard workout. As to the upper body I have no idea yet what I want to do and can't remember exactly what I did before... I think it was pressups, situps, and dumbbell curls, raises, and flyes. Any suggestions by anyone on a simple upper body exercise routine for a beginner would be much appreciated I don't wanna look like Arnie I just want to get some tone and lose weight... just do on my upper body whatever equivalent of toning would happen for my legs through biking... probably just lots of reps of a low strength activity... where I can just gradually increase the reps over time.

For someone new you probably want to focus on movements that use more than one joint, These build the most size the most efficiently. Also my personal advice would be minimal amount of sets, and lots of rest between workouts. Also high intensity. Move the weight until you can't get another rep, no matter how much it burns.

Also, if you have some sort of issue where you it's difficult to train your lower body, there are probably ways around that. I have degenerative disc disease and I do dumbbell squats instead of barbell squats for my thighs. Balanced physiques are a good thing and lower body strength helps you out in life more than you'd think.

Thanks for the advice but basically I think I've got myself too unfit to be comfortable doing high intensity workouts yet... because I'm worried about having a heart attack... believe me I can't even run/jog 100 yards without feeling like that. So the way I figured it was I'd aim for cardio workouts until my heart was in fairly good condition before I started looking at anything else. So with the upper body I was basically looking for something gentle but repetitive... that would work more on cardio than muscles... but hopefully muscles/tone and weight as well as a byproduct... whatever the upper body equivalent of exercise biking would be. For instance if I had space for it... which I don't... I'd love a rowing machine cos I'd figure that as similar sort of exercise for the upper body as an exercise bike is for the lower. Another option would be lots of reps of dumbbell exercises using the lightest weight etc... just until I feel some sort of confidence in my heart/lungs to be able to handle this... after all this smoking. For instance at last check I couldn't hold my breath under water for as long as I used to, swim as long as I used to or even blow up a balloon like I used to. So all those effects of smoking have snuck up on me and I figure could take quite a while to undo/recover from. So with the exercise bike I'm just going relatively gentle for the moment; 5 mins warming up at 45rpm, 10 mins at 60rpm, then 5 mins warming down at 45rpm, then stretches. When I did it in the past and was much fitter, I went way above 60rpm, including bursts of high intensity speed (since the bike has some cool games/scoring/features to make that interesting and motivating), and for much longer at the same resistance (6th of 8 settings)... but as it stands, 60 or thereabouts seems safest heartwise... gets me a bit out of breath and sweating profusely (but where it's a heat wave at the moment so not necessarily as much indicative of the intensity of the workout) but not so much that I feel I'm at risk of a heart attack.

As for the movement restrictions, that basically comes from a) RSI... which is generally triggered by a combination of bad posture and certain types of tension. I don't have RSI at the moment but I have a history of it and predisposition to it... so certain types of exercises/activities trigger it... like isometric exercises... and I found even situps started to because of the tension involved in keeping the legs down. So after that became a problem I just felt that my repertoire of available exercises started to diminish, until I eventually just gave up on exercise altogether... which is not the best advice for RSI... but is what ended up happening. The other thing, b), was a groin injury/condition caused in part (probably) by smoking, so that made physical locomotion difficult for a long while, and basically ruled out biking... so this use of the exercise bike is actually my first tentative steps back on a bike after that - so far so good, but it's a careful process and certain postures on the bike I still can't really do.

So basically a lot to undo/recover from here, but I am still hopeful that gradually I can improve, even if only in baby steps, and it won't be a waste since I'm no longer smoking.

But thanks for the advice... I'll bear it in mind for when I do feel confident in my heart

A great alternative for high intensity that makes you feel like you're going to die is interval training. No matter what the movement is, only do enough of it to get your heart beating a little bit stronger. Slow down (don't stop, walk around or something), wait until your heart has calmed down and do it again. I like interval training because I hate feeling like I'm going so hard that I'm making myself sick.

(July 26, 2018 at 9:53 am)Shell B Wrote: A great alternative for high intensity that makes you feel like you're going to die is interval training. No matter what the movement is, only do enough of it to get your heart beating a little bit stronger. Slow down (don't stop, walk around or something), wait until your heart has calmed down and do it again. I like interval training because I hate feeling like I'm going so hard that I'm making myself sick.

Sounds worth a look

(July 26, 2018 at 8:50 am)emjay Wrote:

(July 26, 2018 at 7:51 am)The Industrial Atheist Wrote: For someone new you probably want to focus on movements that use more than one joint, These build the most size the most efficiently. Also my personal advice would be minimal amount of sets, and lots of rest between workouts. Also high intensity. Move the weight until you can't get another rep, no matter how much it burns.

Also, if you have some sort of issue where you it's difficult to train your lower body, there are probably ways around that. I have degenerative disc disease and I do dumbbell squats instead of barbell squats for my thighs. Balanced physiques are a good thing and lower body strength helps you out in life more than you'd think.

Thanks for the advice but basically I think I've got myself too unfit to be comfortable doing high intensity workouts yet... because I'm worried about having a heart attack... believe me I can't even run/jog 100 yards without feeling like that. So the way I figured it was I'd aim for cardio workouts until my heart was in fairly good condition before I started looking at anything else. So with the upper body I was basically looking for something gentle but repetitive... that would work more on cardio than muscles... but hopefully muscles/tone and weight as well as a byproduct... whatever the upper body equivalent of exercise biking would be. For instance if I had space for it... which I don't... I'd love a rowing machine cos I'd figure that as similar sort of exercise for the upper body as an exercise bike is for the lower. Another option would be lots of reps of dumbbell exercises using the lightest weight etc... just until I feel some sort of confidence in my heart/lungs to be able to handle this... after all this smoking. For instance at last check I couldn't hold my breath under water for as long as I used to, swim as long as I used to or even blow up a balloon like I used to. So all those effects of smoking have snuck up on me and I figure could take quite a while to undo/recover from. So with the exercise bike I'm just going relatively gentle for the moment; 5 mins warming up at 45rpm, 10 mins at 60rpm, then 5 mins warming down at 45rpm, then stretches. When I did it in the past and was much fitter, I went way above 60rpm, including bursts of high intensity speed (since the bike has some cool games/scoring/features to make that interesting and motivating), and for much longer at the same resistance (6th of 8 settings)... but as it stands, 60 or thereabouts seems safest heartwise... gets me a bit out of breath and sweating profusely (but where it's a heat wave at the moment so not necessarily as much indicative of the intensity of the workout) but not so much that I feel I'm at risk of a heart attack.

As for the movement restrictions, that basically comes from a) RSI... which is generally triggered by a combination of bad posture and certain types of tension. I don't have RSI at the moment but I have a history of it and predisposition to it... so certain types of exercises/activities trigger it... like isometric exercises... and I found even situps started to because of the tension involved in keeping the legs down. So after that became a problem I just felt that my repertoire of available exercises started to diminish, until I eventually just gave up on exercise altogether... which is not the best advice for RSI... but is what ended up happening. The other thing, b), was a groin injury/condition caused in part (probably) by smoking, so that made physical locomotion difficult for a long while, and basically ruled out biking... so this use of the exercise bike is actually my first tentative steps back on a bike after that - so far so good, but it's a careful process and certain postures on the bike I still can't really do.

So basically a lot to undo/recover from here, but I am still hopeful that gradually I can improve, even if only in baby steps, and it won't be a waste since I'm no longer smoking.

But thanks for the advice... I'll bear it in mind for when I do feel confident in my heart

You're very welcome! Keep up the good work and good luck in your efforts. The only upper body thing I can think of is rowing, but that's not gentle. There's an exercise that 's like swimming you can do on a weider ultimate bodyworks. I can't find a video. Maybe if you set it on a low enough incline it could be gentle and a cardio exercise.

(July 26, 2018 at 11:49 am)The Industrial Atheist Wrote:

(July 26, 2018 at 8:50 am)emjay Wrote: Thanks for the advice but basically I think I've got myself too unfit to be comfortable doing high intensity workouts yet... because I'm worried about having a heart attack... believe me I can't even run/jog 100 yards without feeling like that. So the way I figured it was I'd aim for cardio workouts until my heart was in fairly good condition before I started looking at anything else. So with the upper body I was basically looking for something gentle but repetitive... that would work more on cardio than muscles... but hopefully muscles/tone and weight as well as a byproduct... whatever the upper body equivalent of exercise biking would be. For instance if I had space for it... which I don't... I'd love a rowing machine cos I'd figure that as similar sort of exercise for the upper body as an exercise bike is for the lower. Another option would be lots of reps of dumbbell exercises using the lightest weight etc... just until I feel some sort of confidence in my heart/lungs to be able to handle this... after all this smoking. For instance at last check I couldn't hold my breath under water for as long as I used to, swim as long as I used to or even blow up a balloon like I used to. So all those effects of smoking have snuck up on me and I figure could take quite a while to undo/recover from. So with the exercise bike I'm just going relatively gentle for the moment; 5 mins warming up at 45rpm, 10 mins at 60rpm, then 5 mins warming down at 45rpm, then stretches. When I did it in the past and was much fitter, I went way above 60rpm, including bursts of high intensity speed (since the bike has some cool games/scoring/features to make that interesting and motivating), and for much longer at the same resistance (6th of 8 settings)... but as it stands, 60 or thereabouts seems safest heartwise... gets me a bit out of breath and sweating profusely (but where it's a heat wave at the moment so not necessarily as much indicative of the intensity of the workout) but not so much that I feel I'm at risk of a heart attack.

As for the movement restrictions, that basically comes from a) RSI... which is generally triggered by a combination of bad posture and certain types of tension. I don't have RSI at the moment but I have a history of it and predisposition to it... so certain types of exercises/activities trigger it... like isometric exercises... and I found even situps started to because of the tension involved in keeping the legs down. So after that became a problem I just felt that my repertoire of available exercises started to diminish, until I eventually just gave up on exercise altogether... which is not the best advice for RSI... but is what ended up happening. The other thing, b), was a groin injury/condition caused in part (probably) by smoking, so that made physical locomotion difficult for a long while, and basically ruled out biking... so this use of the exercise bike is actually my first tentative steps back on a bike after that - so far so good, but it's a careful process and certain postures on the bike I still can't really do.

So basically a lot to undo/recover from here, but I am still hopeful that gradually I can improve, even if only in baby steps, and it won't be a waste since I'm no longer smoking.

But thanks for the advice... I'll bear it in mind for when I do feel confident in my heart

You're very welcome! Keep up the good work and good luck in your efforts. The only upper body thing I can think of is rowing, but that's not gentle. There's an exercise that 's like swimming you can do on a weider ultimate bodyworks. I can't find a video. Maybe if you set it on a low enough incline it could be gentle and a cardio exercise.

Thanks By gentle I think I partly mean rhythmic... something you can get into a flow with, change the resistance, and pace yourself... like the exercise bike... so as long as I could change the resistance on a rowing machine it might be something I could get into, but I haven't really got space for one at the moment, or for whatever a weider ultimate bodyworks is... presumably a home gym? Not even enough space for a small weights bench... though I'd love one; think that would help with the situps as well as it would be something to hold my feet in place. But I think I can roughly picture the sort of thing you're suggesting here and I'll bear it in mind in case I ever do get a suitable surface to try it from... it might even work.. with mods... just on an exercise mat... maybe

If you don't have the space at home and are not willing to shell out the price for a gym membership, this sort of thing is sprouting all over the place... maybe you can find a set in a park near you!
https://wicksteed.co.uk/fitness-legacy-zone/

(July 26, 2018 at 4:34 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If you don't have the space at home and are not willing to shell out the price for a gym membership, this sort of thing is sprouting all over the place... maybe you can find a set in a park near you!
https://wicksteed.co.uk/fitness-legacy-zone/

There is a gym nearby and I am partially tempted but it's very expensive and I don't like their payment policy - ie pay up front for a year, no refunds. I see that sort of payment policy for a gym as not exactly dishonest but sneaky... cynical... so am less willing to pay, even if I can afford it, on principle... given that a fair proportion of people joining a gym... perhaps on a new year's resolution... won't stick with it the full term. If it put them out in any way for people not to show up... that would be one thing... but it doesn't look like it does aside from perhaps the time personal trainers put in in giving advice.. but other than that it's pretty much like a bus... still gonna cost the same or thereabouts to run no matter how many people use it. So that's just a bit of a sore point with me. It's not that I couldn't commit to it... the money at least... but just the principle of it. There is another gym that I know that has a more pay as you go policy, but it's a bit too far away/awkward for me.

As to gyms in parks... I'll keep a lookout, but I've never seen one so far. Thanks for the suggestion though

(July 26, 2018 at 4:34 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If you don't have the space at home and are not willing to shell out the price for a gym membership, this sort of thing is sprouting all over the place... maybe you can find a set in a park near you!
https://wicksteed.co.uk/fitness-legacy-zone/

.

I'm fairly satisfied with what I can do at home but..damn the US needs more socialism. I want this in my park.