Okay, I have questions. My current workout is consisting of a mile on the treadmill (I havent yet increased how far I walk, but I am now up to a 19 minute mile) and then weight resistance training on the machines at the YMCA. The days I don't do weight training, I also bike two miles and always still use the sit up machine thingy.

Now, I've heard a couple of you mention lifting? Are you referring to really weight lifting? How to begin, etc?

Lakegirl,

The forum Ladies who Lift is great for weight lifting.

My first tip is you should always do weight training before cardio if you are going to do them in a single session.

A couple websites to look at are http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html and http://www.exrx.net/Exercise.html

And I NEVER do weight lifting before cardio ... LOL.

The weight machines you are using are a form of weight lifting. They are great to start out with, and the exrx site nelie mentioned shows you how to do all sorts of exercises with them. However, a lot of people move beyond the machines eventually, because using free weights (dumbells and barbells) work more muscles in a single exercise, and you can do more with them.

I highly recommend stumptuous and exrx. If you're interested in a book, I recommend Kathy Smith's Lift Weights to Lose Weight. She also has two videos by that name, the original and a volume 2, that are great.

Well the reasoning for never doing cardio before weight lifting is that cardio uses either glycogen or fat for energy, weight lifting uses glycogen mainly. If you do weight lifting before cardio, then your glycogen will be depleted and then the cardio will have to use your fat stores as energy. If you do cardio before weight lifting, your glycogen stores will be depleted and your weight lifting workout will generally suffer. It is generally why people seperate weight lifting and cardio or do weight lifting before cardio.

And all of that is assuming that you're doing both activities during the same visit. An ideal scenario would be to do the cardio first thing in the morning, and then to return later in the day for the weights, perhaps in the afternoon or early evening. Then you'd get the maximum benefit from both the cardio and the weight training.

Yes I did mean in one session, if you eat (carbs) then your glycogen stores are replenished and so it wouldn't matter if you did cardio then ate and then did weights.

I understand the theory behind the recommendation of doing weights first. However, if I do then I don't have nearly enough juice to do the cardio I need to do. Doing cardio first saves time too -- I don't have to do a separate warmup before my weights. And, I've never noticed a substatial difference in what I'm able to lift if I do it before cardio. So the theory may be right, but in practical terms it doesn't work for me.

Kathy Smith has even said that, despite the theory behind the weights-first arguement, that it just doesn't work for some people. It's worth experimenting and finding what works for YOU. Same with doing cardio in the morning. Sure, theoretically it revs your metabolism more overall, but guess what? I'm not a morning person, and part of my lifestyle makeover is to stop the if-I-can't-do-it-in-the-most-perfect-way-I-might-as-well-not-do-it-at-all way of thinking. So, the BEST time to do cardio is whatever suits you.

I understand if it doesn't work for you. I used to do cardio then weights but I never made much progress. I don't always do cardio after my weight workout because of the reason that I am so wiped out, so I try to just do cardio on another day.

I tried the morning cardio thing but I too am not a morning person The reasoning behind that is the same as doing cardio after weights, your glycogen stores are depleted and therefore you are burning fat. Although I know a lot of people cite that doing cardio in the morning keeps your metabolism up throughout the day, I did recently read that it isn't that significant.

I put up the explanation about doing weights before cardio just because someone might see it and say "why that doesn't make sense", it wasn't a directive for you

I'm with funniegirl.

Cardio can be complete torture for me... especially anything involving the sidewalk to **** (treadmill). Weightlifting is always fun and challenging for me, so it works like a total reward system.

Of course, when I swim for my cardio, I don't go near the weights. But that's just because I'm weird.