I should introduce myself here because I haven't actually been to the forums for several months and was not doing any kind of resistance training then. I joined here last year sometime and started trying to lose weight AGAIN. It wasn't that I was unsuccessful at keeping weight off, it was that I had been unsuccessful at losing it at all after my son was born 8 years ago. In fact I quit smoking and used it as an excuse to eat more and packed on even more weight. I initially lost about 20 pounds and then just sort of worked on some lifestyle changes without really trying specifically to lose weight and somehow lost another 10. I initially spent awhile breaking my addiction to diet soda, then started working on mostly eating clean, and have increased my personal activity level through fun things like more scuba diving, kayaking, etc. I didn't lose much weight although I think my overall body composition has changed, so I can't really complain too much. Of course I am sure it wasn't just the cardio and endurance of those activities. I helped work in the shop a day or two a week and spent a lot of time lifting numerous scuba tanks, filling them, climbing up and down with them to load them onto a truck or boat.
I finally decided a couple weeks ago it is time to kick things into gear and get into the gym. Even at 211 pounds currently and still at least 60 pounds overweight, I now have nicely rounded shoulders and can see the definition of my biceps and triceps when moving. I used to lift many years ago, but always thought cardio was the way to go to lose weight so I haven't tried it again. Unfortunately, it took me too many years of going to the gym for a couple months and getting on the elliptical for 90+ minutes at a time before I realized that this just wasn't going to work for me. All that cardio alone and not eating clean but trying to "diet" got me was a nice round shape.
After a few months of doing nothing more than climbing up and down while holding a 30lb scuba cylinder in each hand a couple times a week, as well as being generally active in life, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I think my body actually looks better and more sculpted than it did 12 years ago at 30 pounds lighter. My waist is now a full 11 inches smaller than my hips (although I attribute a lot of that just to simply eating clean). I have dropped a couple of clothing sizes although I still have a long way to go. I look better, feel better, and have way more self confidence. I realize that a lot of what I was doing was essentially functional excercises and things like stepping up into the truck with tanks was like stepping onto a bench with dumbbells.
I started off with a body part split of chest/tris, back/biceps, and leg shoulders, repeat then take a day off. It is what I had always done before but now it seems a lot of the current info says it might be too much. I will probably continue as is since I feel so fabulous physically and mentally and then I can make changes gradually to see how they work. I don't have any interest at all in sprinting toward the finish line here and could care less how long it takes me to lose the weight as long as I am working towards being as healthy as I can be. Weight training is obviously the way to go for maximizing my results since in 2000 when I was doing it, and before I got pregnant with my third daughter, I was 160 pounds in a size 6.
The biggest problem I am having at this point is that my grip strength and wrist strength seems to be awful, which surprises me after carrying all those tanks. Of course they were danging from my hands actually pulling on my wrists rather than having me push against them. I can easily hold 30 pound dumbbells at each side with them hanging, but I cannot push even close to that amount of weight upward without serious burning in my forearms. After lifting my forearms feel pumped and swollen so I am hoping they will catch up, but it gets frustrated trying to do something like dumbbell flys and not being able to feel it at all in my chest before my wrists give out on me. Does anyone have any advice on working through this problem? Is it something I can expect improvement on soon or will it take a great deal of time? Is it possible that it is a problem with my grip technique itself? Interestingly they don't bother me doing things like dips and pullups, but pushups are a killer on my wrists and I can't get through a single one even on my knees. It isn't like I have some injury type pain, they actually FEEL weak and I want to make sure I don't do something wrong trying to fix it.
Thanks for any help you can provide.