AF Biggest Loser/Fitness Challenge-May 3 to Whenever We're Not Fat Anymore

[The Industrial Atheist]

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.