I'm ready to do more

not_my_first_rodeo

Here's my situation:

• I'm a 47 year old woman. 5'6. Down from 250 pounds to 209.
• My job is sedentary.
• My exercise since starting this process has involved walking. I average about 12k steps a day. I get in about 15 flights of stairs a day.
• I have no exercise equipment at home.
• Money is extremely tight.

I am finally ready to start incorporating more into my exercise routine. Specifically I'd like to start working on my legs and firming my butt, but gaining upper arm strength would be great too. In about 2 months I will be able to access a gym with weight lifting equipment, but I'd like to start on this now.

Are there exercises I can start doing now, at home, for free, that will help with those? If so, can you give me names of these, and, if at all possible, links to videos showing me how to do them?

KickboxFanatic

Look into the You Are Your Own Gym program. That has a ton of at home exercises that you can do.

rybo

As mentioned above, also nerdfitness has a great beginner body weight program

deannalfisher

fitnessblender on youtube is great for workouts at home - you need a set of weights (I have $10 ones from target); but they also have bodyweight kind of stuff

not_my_first_rodeo

Thanks! I'll look into these. I can pay $10 for weights. That's in my budget.

NorthCascades

Stuff like pushups and dips and whatnot is great because it's free, and if you do some research and pick the right exercises, you can do a lot with body weight.

I use a set of resistance bands. They're giant rubber bands with handles. Here are the ones I use. You can mimic a lot of traditional weight exercises with them. They're cheap, and travel well. But the handles are not durable.

singletrackmtbr

I'll add in a pullup bar. You can buy a doorway model for less than 20 bucks at Wal-Mart. If you do a good bodyweight program you shouldn't need weights, and IMO would be better served spending money on the bar.