After seeing Meg's reply about muscle vs fat and the importance of weight trainging I have a question that maybe one of you can help me with. We can afford a gym right now and even the community resource places around here charge more than we can afford. Can anyone give me suggestions for weight training I can do at home? I have been using soup cans and doing things like biscept curles but would like some more ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Check out yard sales for weights, people either start and then stop a weight training program and need the space for yet another miracle machine or they progress and need heavier weights.

If you can't afford weights:
Use plastic gallon milk jugs-fill them with sand or what ever you have around the house to the weight you want. Use you bathroom scale to get the weight you want.

The following books and videos are great. Most may be at your local library:

The Strong Women series by Miriam Nelson:
strong women;stong hearts
Strong women eat well
Strong women stay young
Strong Women stay slim

The website: http://www.strongwomen.com/

Video: Shaping up with weights for dummies

Body for life Bill Phillips (he pushes shakes and food supplements-just read the exercise part )
http://www.bodyforlife.com/exercise/animations.asp You can watch demonstrations of some of the exercise.

Body for Life for Women by Pamela Pike

Websites:

Strength Training and Specialty Workouts
These free online cardio, strength training and flexibility workouts will help you burn fat and build lean body tissue. Include pictures, QuickTime videos and descriptions http://exercise.about.com/od/exerciseworkouts/

Finding cheap exercise equipment
http://exercise.about.com/od/equipme...t_exercise.htm

Take care,
Sarah

When I didn't have a gym membership, I got some really cheap workout videos on ebay. Sometimes they put a few together for one price. I found a pilates video and it's really helped with toning and flexiblity.
I also have been starting to do crunches and pushups - I can't do many right now, but I can to more than when I first started and I've seen some definition in my arms.
Hope this helps a bit!

I had a fitness trainer last fall who set me up on a program at home. I purchased some hand weights at Wal Mart. I started with 2 lb., I think, for about 2.00 ea, then when I needed heavier ones, I purchase them a month or so later.

I have a document with the exercises that she set me up with, so if you want to PM me with your email addy, I will send the document to you.

Pushups, squats, lunges, and crunches, with no equipment, are great exercises. I work out with weight machines at a gym, and I also take a class called "Abs, Back, & Glutes" that's just an hour of different kinds of squats, lunges, and crunches, and I am WAY more sore the day after my class (like, I can't get up and down the stairs) than the day after using the weight machines. You have to make sure you have proper form for squats and lunges or you could hurt your knees (proper form is also key for crunches & pushups, but just because good form is harder than bad form), so check out a book from the library with pictures & instructions.

Good luck!!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I guess my mind doesn't work right when it comes to exercise. Should have thought of these on my own.