[tracyj1978]

I am thinking of joining a gym. I have a lot to lose, around 220 pounds to be exact, and i am afraid of building alot of muscle rather than losing weight. For those of you who work out at the gym. What kind of exercises do you do?

[sassybrat]

Don't be afraid of building muscle......even though muscle weighs more than fat, muscle burns more calories than fat can ever do. So maybe measure your body first.... then if you do join a gym, measure each week... so you won't get discouraged! We can't let the scales rule us!! They are great as a check point...but they shouldn't rule our day our world.

Best of luck. I applaude your desires to lose weight and get fit.

[tracyj1978]

Thank you. I have wanted to for some time now. I have just figured basically the only thing i could do at this point is be on the treadmill and maybe do water aerobics. I am so overweight i figure there is nothing i can do right now to tone. I just wanted to check here before i went and wasted all the money to join a gym.

[sassybrat]

You are welcome. Actually, water arobics sound ideal. I have back problems, and was thinking that would be a great start for me. Water arobics don't jolt your body and with the resistance of the water you get a better workout.

Let me know how you do!!
Huggles

[happydaisy]

Water aerobics would be awesome for you. And remember, muscle doesn't weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat, it's just that muscle is denser (and takes up less space, yay!!) than fat. Muscle also takes a ton more calories to maintain than fat, thus speeding up your metabolism and allowing you to eat more while still losing weight. Not only that, but it makes physical activity so much more pleasurable. In short, building muscle will speed up your metabolism, make you feel stronger, help you burn more calories and make you look better, so don't be scared of it. I think joining the gym is a great idea. I feel that I'm heavy enough that a lot of activities aren't as fun for me as they could be, so I enjoy the low impact of the elliptical and the recumbant bike. I also love the variety of classes. Good luck and enjoy!

[tracyj1978]

Thanks for the encouragement. I think ill go join the gym

[Kelly_S]

Actually muscle DOES NOT weigh more than fat. 1 pound is a pound however muscle is more dense so the same pound does not take up as much space.

And as others have said the more muscle you have the more your body is a calorie burning machine.

You should actually do a cardio routine and use strength training, ie, weights!

I do a cardio routine at home 6 days a week in the form of the Walk Away The Pounds DVDs ( www.walkawaythepounds.com or www.lesliesansone.com ) and on Mo/Th I do weights for my chest, shoulders, triceps, and abs; on Tu/Fr I do weights for my legs, back, biceps, on W I do a high intensity cardio work out on the treadmill or bike.

Just to show you why you shouldn't be afraid of building muscle my friend and I are both 150 pounds but she is a size 4-6 and I am a size 8-10. She worked out a lot more than I did while losing and I didn't do barely anything.

Here is a great article on Women and Muscle:

REALITIES & MYTHS:

Despite an overwhelming amount of information and evidence to the contrary, many women are still afraid that strength training will give them big muscles. Worrying about this makes as much sense as worry about becoming too happy, healthy, beautiful and rich. The female body just isn’t programmed to grow “manly” muscles. Genetics, hormones, body fat, and body type all prevent that. Even if you want to grow big muscles, you’ll soon discover that without dangerous steroids it’s virtually impossible.

HOW MOTHER NATURE GROWS MUSCLE ON WOMEN

Women’s muscles get leaner, not bigger, with an average increase in size of a quarter to half inch, even after years of training. Although women can get stronger indefinitely, muscles respond by getting denser, not bigger. Many women notice their waists, hips, thighs and buttocks get smaller as they get stronger. Shoulders may appear a bit larger and squarer (sometimes merely the result of improved posture) and arms may get more defined as less fat hangs off the underarm.

But stronger muscles weigh more. Because muscle weighs more than fat, some women notice that training makes them gain weight (and this is a though psychological barrier to break). A body-fat test is a more accurate measure of progress than a scale.

· Women with 15-20 percent body fat may notice an immediate weight gain after a few weeks of training.

· Women with a 20-30 percent body fat may maintain a steady weight for a while but notice their waistlines shrinking.

· Women with more than 30 percent body fat may experience an immediate weight loss.

Also remember: Lean muscles look bigger. AS body fat drops to between 15 and 20 percent, muscles start to peek out from under the protective glaze of body fat.

Some women still get bigger than they’d like, especially if they have an endomorphic or mesomorphic body type. A body-fat test can confirm if this size increase is muscle or fat.

· To shrink muscle, simply ease up on training for a while.

· To shrink fat, strength train more intensely, two or three days a week. Make cardio workouts longer and moderate (45-60 minutes) or more vigorous for 30 minutes so you expend more total calories.

WHY WOMEN CAN’T BUILD BIG MUSCLES

For a woman to succeed at building big muscles, without the help of anabolic steroids, she literally has to be a genetic freak. The chances of this happening are about one in a million.

· Most women have short muscles and long tendons. This makes it very tough to build large, curvaceous muscles, since too much of the limb is made of flat connective tissue. Very few mortals have long, full muscles and short tendons.

· Women don’t have enough testosterone. Although women’s bodies natural produce this male growth-inspiring hormone (just as men’s bodies produce female hormones), men have about 100 times more of it. Some women produce more testosterone than others. But that’s still not enough to give women a natural anabolic edge.

· Women have more body fat. Most women have between 20 and 30 percent body fat. Fat hides muscle. It also means that women possess a smaller ratio of lean muscle to fat, so less muscle mass is available for use (although women are as strong as men when compared, according to this percentage of lean muscle).


REST BETWEEN STRENGTH WORKOUTS

When you strength train, you create microscopic tears in muscle fibers, which take at least two days to heal. That’s why you shouldn’t train the same muscles two days in a row.

If you train too hard, you may need to take four or five days off (if muscles are very sore, gentle limbering moves and stretches can ease your pain). A good rule of thumb is to wait until soreness goes away before doing another intense workout. If your workouts aren’t that hard and you don’t get sore, you can come back sooner (or you might want to reevaluate your workouts and increase the intensity if appropriate).

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends strength training the whole body every other day, three times a week.

RESTING BETWEEN SETS

How long you rest between sets is usually based on how hard you’re working. The traditional belief about rest time is:

· 15 to 20 reps of light weight (muscle endurance), rest for 20 to 30 seconds;
· 8 to 12 reps of moderate weight (for building strength and size), rest for 30 seconds to a minute;
· 1 to 6 reps of heavy weight (for building strength and power), rest for up to 5 minutes.

THE POWER OF REST

Progress is cyclical, not linear. Nobody can maintain high energy all the time and no one keeps getting stronger indefinitely. Strength curves, like learning curves, follow a natural rhythm. Sometimes we grow in spurts and learn quickly, other times we just have to process the information, rest and adapt.

Here’s how to tap the power of rest:

· If you’re making gradual strength gains over a long period of time, then you’re getting enough rest. Keep it up.
· If you’re stuck on a strength plateau, try building in an extra day or two of rest and increase the weight, at least for 8 reps.
· If you’re in a growth spurt, making big strength gains, don’t assume it’ll last forever. Pull back before you hit a burnout. Don’t go for more than three weeks of all-out intensity without taking at least a week or two of rest.

[Kelly_S]

Here is another great article:
A WOMAN’S BODY PASSAGES

Within one year, 98 percent of all the atoms in our bodies are completely replaced: Every five weeks, we create all new skin cells; every three weeks, our fat cells dump out the old fat and take in the new; every six weeks our liver cells regenerate themselves; and every three months, our bone cells are completely rebuilt.

So, if our bodies regenerate themselves at this pace, then it raises some questions: What is aging? And if we have the power to constantly renew ourselves, why do we get old?

Twenties

In your twenties, your muscle tone is naturally firm and your metabolism is still relatively high. Your bones reach peak mass and strength between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four and arrive at full maturity around age thirty.

During this decade, exercise and eating habits are usually inconsistent. You may still have few leftover adolescent bad habits: eating sugary, fatty foods; partying; drinking and eating too much then dieting; taking too much exercise or not enough. Extreme behaviors like excessive dieting and too much or no exercise at all can contribute to bone loss even in your twenties. (Some doctors estimate that 50 percent of all bone loss happens before menopause.) But if you get in shape now, you’ll conquer many of your immediate demons and lay the groundwork for lifelong health.

What to do in your twenties:

- Be physically active. It doesn’t matter what you choose, but do something physical at least three times a week. Play a sport, take dance or fitness classes, go for hikes – just move!
- Start a weight-training program to build a strong base of support for your whole body. Put your primary focus on torso – back, chest, abs, and upper legs.
- Avoid becoming a yoga or dance Gumby without also building stronger muscles. Hyperflexibility without the muscle strength to support the joints could set you up for arthritis and risk injury to tendons and ligaments later in life.
- If you have a baby, try not to hold on to the majority of your postpartum fat for more than six months after delivery. Your body will hold on to an extra 5 or 10 pounds as long as you’re nursing. Once you stop, you’ll lose it more easily. A sensible program combining strength and cardiovascular exercise will get you closer to your pre-baby shape – and offers a psychological boost, giving you at least the illusion of having control over your life.

Thirties

In this decade, the big differences start to show between those who stay physically active and those who don’t. If you don’t stay active, your metabolism slows down. Your waistline starts to thicken. Fat clings to hips and thighs more readily now, and after age thirty-five your bones start to lose density – about 1 percent a year. Regular exercise, of course, can change all this.

What to do in your thirties:

- Learn to love strength training. Hit the weights once or twice a week to stay lean, strong, maintain bone strength, keep good posture, and create a new you.
- Pick aerobic workouts that make you feel great and train at least three days a week.
- Stretch to stay limber in body and mind (stretch after your workouts or add separate yoga/stretching classes).
- If you don’t have the time, make the time. Surely you can fit in four thirty-minute workouts. That’s only two hours of exercise.

Forties

This is the decade of big body changes. If you stayed in active throughout your thirties, now the piper demands payment (your bill adds up to 5 to 10 percent of your muscle mass, and 10 percent of your bone mass!). Even if you exercise regularly, you feel the shift. Hips widen. Old injuries demand special care. Your knees tell you not to run on concrete. You discover your need for balance.

For many women, this is the time of perimenopause – the beginning of “the change,” marked by irregular periods, hot flashes, increases in bad cholesterol, sleep changes, and mood swings more extreme than PMS. Menopause officially begins a year after the end of the last period. But perimenopause, a nebulous time with no clear beginning, can last for years. The good news is that symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats are about half as likely to happen when you maintain regular exercise. Exercise also provides you with the best prevention against bone loss and heart disease, helps you avoid excess weight gain and depression, and maintain function, posture, strength, and agility in body and mind.

What to do in your forties:

- Become a weight-lifting warrior if you haven’t already. Hire a trainer or teach yourself by reading good books on the subject. Twice a week is all you need.
- Pay extra attention to muscles in the upper back, lower back, and abdominals to keep good torso strength and posture – particularly if you sit all day.
- Switch from running to brisk walking to protect your knees.
- Take mini-workouts wherever you can. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Walk to town instead of driving. Park in the farthest parking space, even when it’s raining.
- Take up yoga, Tai Chi, or Aikido (for energy and mental clarity).
- Take up something fun because you’ve always wanted to: ballroom dancing, rock climbing, and scuba diving.

Fifties

If you haven’t stayed active, your bones will lose 2 to 5 percent more of their former mass in the two to five years after menopause. Then bone loss will stabilize back to 1 percent per year. But there are ways around this. A Tufts University study on postmenopausal women showed a f1 percent gain in bone density in leg and back bones after one year of strength training, compared to a 2.5 percent loss in the non-training group! But remember you need to get enough calcium. You need 1,500 milligrams of calcium a day, 1,000 more if you’re on hormone replacements – yet most women only get 25 percent of the RDA. Take supplements if you need to. Neither exercise nor calcium alone will prevent bone loss. They work as a team.

What to do in your fifties:

- If you suffer from joint pain, try softer forms of exercise like water aerobics or brisk walking instead of jogging.
- Stick with or start weight training to prevent osteoporosis.
- Stay flexible in your body and mind with yoga or Tai Chi.
- Work in your garden. Walk around your neighborhood. Keep moving.

Sixties and Beyond

Although there’s a big difference been sixty and ninety, many of the same suggestions apply throughout these years. As you age, your brain continues to make new neural pathways. IN other words, you can learn new things up until you die. But if you lack stimulation of any kind (mental, physical, spiritual, sexual) you interests and abilities atrophy. Once you stop learning, creating, loving, or contributing, your vitality diminishes and depression sets in. Perhaps one of the biggest problems with age, at least in American society, is lack of connectedness.

If you take no other exercise, walk. Walk to town, walk in the mall, walk with friends, get out, get some fresh air, and stand up straight. If it’s necessary, use a walker or cane. Simple being in a vertical position with gravity exerting weight on your bones is good for the muscles, bones and spirit.

In addition, start lifting weights. Controlled, slow exercises are within the grasp of most people – and are not stressful. You’re never too old to improve. A study of a hundred nursing home residents over age ninety showed an increase in strength of 110 percent after just ten weeks of training!

What to do in your sixties and beyond:

- Walk for wellness.
- Continue with or begin strength training, studying yoga, Tai Chi, or other practices.
- Take a water-fitness class – especially in warmer pools to ease arthritis.
- Make connections with friends, family, children, and pets.
- Stay mentally keen. Read books and newspapers. Go to movies, plays, and museums.

The Complete Book of Fitness Mind * Body * Spirit
by the Editors of Fitness Magazine with Karen Andres

[pioneerprincess]

You should definitely join a gym. There is so much that you can do. When I started, I was much heavier, and I enjoyed swimming and recumbant bikes. Then, once I was comfortable with those low-profile activities, I walked on the treadmill, then the elliptical. It was all gradual, I started with just a few minutes, like 5, and worked my way up to 20-40 minutes! The best part of it for me, is the support of the other people around me. They're all there for the same reasons as I am, plus I have the support of the personal trainers! I used to feel all self conscious and ashamed, but then I realized no one really cared. I love having a place to go after work, work-out time leaves less boredom time, which means less senseless eating.

[tracyj1978]

Thanks guys for the advice.. and great articles kelly thanks for posting them.

[DreamWarrior]

I agree with Sassybrat! The gym is the way to go! I also recommend a personal trainer - even this early in the game. I'll tell you why - motivation and support! For me at least, it was nice knowing that someone (especially someone less forgiving than my girlfriends) was waiting for me at the gym and if I didnt show up - I paid the price (literally)... it was very motivating and it also made me feel less self conscience having someone teach me the appropriate movements. I bit the bullet and paid for 60 sessions in advance so that I knew I had to finish... its expensive, but in the long run, it was soo worth the price, at least to me. I root 100% for the gym and personal trainer!

By the way, if you go to a local gym (not a fad gym) lots of them are willing to work with you as far as payments go... I was able to post date checks and they honored their word and only deposited them on those dates... also, they have the most loyal clients and trainers...

Just my 2 cents worth! Good luck either way!

[MistySeptember]

You've gotten some great ideas! But I wanted to second the water areobics. If you have it available I say GO FOR IT. Resitence and low impact on joints, I used to teach it and it's a great way to build muscle and great way to get a cardio work out. And like others have pointed out weight (resistence) training is an exc3ellent way to build lean muscle mass, which will continue to burn calories long afte ryou are done working out.

I have a question on the muscle vs fat thing. I understand that a pound is a pound is a pound. So yes a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same. But the same mass of muscle and the same mass of fat weigh differently? B/c of density wouldn't a cubic inch of muscle weigh more than a cubic inch of fat. And that is where the saying muscle weighs more than fat came from?

Is it not true, and I may be wrong and that's why I want clarification, but as you build muscle you may not see the scale go up b/c muscle is denser and it is replacing or shrinking the fat. And that is the reason why you need to use measurements or how your clothes fit in order to see your results. B/c say as a person does a a walking workout they build muscle and though they are not shedding pounds right away they are thinner and leaner? But over time you will see pounds gone?

Just curious, b/c I have had even a doctor say to me that muscle weighs more than fat. But, he emphasized not just using a scale to judge my progress.

[UFSeniorGirl]

Misty, yes you are right. Say you fill up one box with fat and another one with muscle, the box of muscle would weigh more because the muscle takes up less space (allowing more weight to fit in).
Obviously a pound of anything and a pound of anything else ALWAYS weighs the same (a pound ).