Okay. So. Here's where I'm at.
I am 40 days away from a pretty intense surgery that I wanted to lose 30 pounds by. I have not lost 30 pounds. I have lost 2-6 depending on the day.
I am bummed.

I was told I can't do ANYTHING I was doing because my back is more messed up than I ever had any idea it was. (It was the twisting and leg raise type things that were killing me)

I live in Seattle. Every time I think about running the sky pokes its stupid face out at me, and drools all over the place. (It rains here constantly)

Can't afford a gym.

Is there any reason I couldn't just fill my backpack up with books, weigh it on my scale and use it instead of a weight/weights?

Has anyone ever done this? What'd you use?


I officially do not care how crazy I look. lol. Not like I cared much before but I'm braving the Seattle rain to run in my polka dot pajama bottoms so I might as well start lifting backpacks/babies or something, right?

weights are made of anything ... the only upside to store bought weight sets are comfortable handles.

That being said... if you have a bad back I would worry more about avoiding injury... doing yourself damage is just not worth it in the long run ... I would focus more on diet and figuring out what you are going to do with yourself during your recovery. Something low impact.

oops forgot to suggest weight options for you.

cheap weights 101

get 4 empty water bottles
2 old pairs of socks.

fill the bottles with sand... or water... depending on what that weighs and what you want. Put a bottle in each sock.. sew the end of each together in pairs... instant floppy barbells.

if you need more weight... move on to 2-liter bottles.

He said I was okay for lifting if my back was supported, it's just the twisting that doc didn't like too much.
Also, cool That's really creative. I'm totally using those

I agree with filling water bottles/jugs with sand or gravel rocks from your driveway? or a neighbor's driveway you could casually "borrow" :P

I've used all kinds of things! Cans of soup, big juice cans, water jugs with handles...weight is weight. Your muscles don't know what your weights look like. ;-)
Do what you can, but do follow drs. orders. I'd hate to have you "out of commission" even longer due to aggrevating an injury. Good luck!

One of my favourite things is using my own weight as the weights - doing things which require you to use your weight as the balancing.

The jars and soup are a good idea. I also found that using books in baskets and creating a crude pulley system means you can add more weight and fashion your own homemade weight groups.

I've used soup cans (full, of course) and milk jugs full of water in the past. You could use 2 liter and 1 liter bottles, also, and that would actually be better than a milk jug.

There are a lot of body weight exercises you can do (like planks, squats, lunges, pushups, etc). I do weird stuff like move furniture around for no reason, I guess you could dust behind it if you really want to. If I find that some object I'm holding has a good amount of heft to it I sometimes lift with it a bit or hold it over my head for awhile or something like that. You can use almost anything as a makeshift weight (jugs, cans, chairs, small appliances, bricks, etc).

That's a good, practical suggestion. I like it!