Loose the fat first - or start lifting immediately

CarynMacD

I've found for me at 5'3 and with 20 pounds to lose, I dropped my calories to 1600 a day, hit my 30 percent protein macro every day, and lift as heavy as I can. I started doing Chalene Extreme (home DVD) a year ago and it has changed me. You need lots of different size dumbbells and will get strong fast! I just hired a personal trainer to help me get the last 10 off and tone up. My body is really different from lifting and I love it! It's like what the others said, I will not need to get to the low weight to look awesome because I already look awesome and have set my goal for 10 pounds. Good luck to you!!

Yay Lisa!

Thanks for the encouragement. I just know that it is going to work out fine. I have lots of dumbbells and barbells at home, a bench, a mat, swiss balls, skipping rope and thankfully I am also a member at a gym. There are NO excuses.

As mentioned earlier, I'm going to do NROLFW and will take a progress picture after each stage. End of Stage 1 is only 6 weeks away. Yikes!

LiftAndBalance

@ FJS - Giving up the cardio is going to be really difficult for me...... I just don't feel like I've worked out unless I am breathless.

Heavy compound lifts raise your heart rate as well - squats tend to leave me quite breathless for example

I AM inspired by your motivation to get weight lifting How does one get into this weight/lifting. I am a female in my early fifties currently weighing 14st 4lb at 5ft tall, Physique I look as if I weigh 16 to 17 stones and wear size 20. Can weight lifting really help, can I at my age start this and where would I start, what do I need to do. SOS !!!!

Choose a beginner's programme (AllPro, Strong Curves, StrongLifts 5x5, Starting Strength, New Rules of Lifting for Women). Watch youtube videos on good form. Begin. Make sure you have good form (by asking a trainer to check, by filming yourself etc.). The programmes all use barbells but you can do the exercises with dumbbells to start with as well; I'm still not strong enough to even lift the empty bar (20 kg/45 lbs) for upper body exercises for example.

Great advice. I don't even know where to start with regard choosing a weight. I thought I would start with bodyweight fist (on the exercises I can just use bodyweight) and see from there. I'm dying for tomorrow to be over so I can report back!

I started with AllPro and he recommends using your 10RM (10 rep max, i.e. the weight you are able to do 10 repetitions with), which I think would be a good starting point for all the programmes I know. You can get your approximate 10RM by doing an exercise with a weight you think could be good for roughly 10 reps but you perform the exercise to failure, i.e. you stop when you cannot do even one more repetition (with good form). I found that most times it's good to really push yourself since I at least would have thought I can't do one more rep when I still could in fact do even two or three more (but that may be just me). Enter the weight and the repetitions you could do in a calculator (e.g. http://www.naturalphysiques.com/18/one-rep-max-calculator) that gives you your approximate 10RM.

Edited to add that, while I've read NROLFW, I can't really remember the routines so not sure if that approach is suitable for it. Don't they make suggestions on what weight to start with? What are the rep and set ranges they use?