As you may know, I'm "back" from injury, which waylayed my routine for 3 months. I'm not yet up to cardio, so my only cardio right now is walking my dog, maybe a mile a day and may get on to the treadmill for 20minutes every day if I can regain that motivation and let go of my fear of reinjury.

So, for now, I'm using my Marcy bench with leg attachment and Versabells (both of which I love) to do the following. THis is based nt he Body4Life 4Women book, but one thing I'm uncertain of, as I am a skimmer with these types of books, is whether all exercises are to be done or if some are redundant. I'm sure you'll figure out what I mean when I state "or".... Let me know if it should be "and".

lying down chest press or incline chest press
lying down or prone fly
seated press
standing or seated front raise
standing or seated lateral raise
kneeling one-arm row and/or cable row
lying or standing overhead extension
tricep kickback
seated or standing or preacher bicep curl
hammer curl
squat
plie squat
deadlift
calf raise
crunch
leg curl
leg raise

I don't do (cuz I can't):
pushup
bench dip
lunge (bad knees)
hip thrust

Generally, I'm doing 3 sets of 12 or sooner to fatigue with what for me is heavy weights and I'm doing this 3-4x week.

Any problems or anything lacking that you see? Any suggestions? Is there enough lower body here????

Between this and a low-cal diet (1000-1500c), I *should* lose weight, but I still don't believe I will as nothing works for me (sigh). Diet is modified Medifast which is for me 1000-1500 calories) and is high protein shakes, soups, chilis and bars and 1-2 lean protein and green veggie meals each day.

Hey there JG! I won't speak to the diet, but I can to the fitness bc I've read the book all the way thru. What it says to do is pick 2 of any of the exercise by body part. So you don't have to do all them that are listed. I know the lbwo seems almost as if it's too short, but I think there are fewer parts to work than the ubwo, plus the exercises are so efficient. I can't do push ups either, so what I do instead is get on my stairs (you could also use a wall) and do a 45 degree pushup. It's still hard, believe me! And as I get better, I drop down a stair until eventually I'll be flat on the ground. I also don't do lunges bc of my knees, yet found that squats (especially ball squats on the wall which aren't in the book) didn't bother my knees.

Other than that, I do mine of decreasing reps of higher resistance. So I would do 12 reps on 10 lbs, 10 reps on 15lbs, and my final set would be 8 reps of 20 lbs, for example. I think that is a BFL standard recommendation - the increasing weight to failure approach.

As I mentioned before, so glad to see you back from injury!

JerseyGirl Nice to see you back! Fran gave great advice for progressing to pushups.
You were injured? What happened.

Pulled gluteus medius TWICE and twisted ankle. Hobbled around forever.

Ouch! I can imagine that you did hobble around for a while. No wonder you needed to take a little time off to heal. How frustrating that must have been and it happened twice. I hope that this has healed successfully for you. Are there special exercises you are doing to strengthen the outer hip? I'm thinking maybe this could be something I should check into as a preventative measure.

It was very painful. First time lasted six weeks and then all of the sudden, just when I thought I was healing, it stopped me dead in my tracks. Went to the doc and as he was describing the muscle I asked, "So, you're saying I pulled my butt??" We laughed. He said 3 months healing, and that was March. I'm just not pushing it. No fast walking, jogging, running, or aerobics. I think running, at my weight, might have done it. Anyway, so I'm just trying to make sure I strengthen my leg muscles, build muscle, and burn off some of this weight.

With my calories, still no movement. My body seems determined to stay this weight! I don't look 300lbs, maybe 50-60lbs lighter, but I am and it's frustrating.

Hey, I was wondering what y'all thought of B4L4Women as recently I've heard some "put downs" of the exercises. Don't know why, they seem pretty standard to me....

I haven't heard anything, but please share what you heard derogatory about it.