Hi all!

I have a slightly unusual question for the forum! I've been recovering from a serious illness that hospitalized me in August and December 2013 and which turned out to be rare, incurable and life-long (though thankfully, not life-threatening). The illness itself isn't really relevant at this point because if I'm not in a flare, I'm basically fine, and I've been given the go-ahead by my specialist to exercise as I wish. However, between getting my flares under control and figuring out my medication this year, the last 12 months have been really difficult. For 6 months (from January to early July) I was so ill from a combination of the illness itself and drug side effects that I was almost completely housebound and on far too many days wasn't able to walk down the flight of stairs to my mailbox, let alone do any kind of exercise.

I am almost 39, 5'8" and currently around 175lbs. I have been maintaining ~85lbs of an original 100lb loss in 2005/6. I started at 260lbs almost exactly 9 years ago, hit 160lbs after 57 weeks, and then maintained up and down in about a 20lb range for eight years, with my weight depending on all kinds of factors in my life. Mainly, though, I've hovered at and around 175lbs. I gained a little during the period I was housebound, but have knocked off those extra pounds in the last few weeks with diet alone. Maybe it's staring my 40th birthday in the face or the impact of the illness, but I feel like this a good time to get out of my 175lb rut and see if I can make another step change in my health and weight, and make that last for the NEXT decade.

My current goals are therefore are to significantly reduce my body fat % (currently approximately 30%), to recover some of my aerobic stamina (I mainly run and swim for cardio) and flexibility (yoga), but most importantly of all, I really REALLY want to get a LOT stronger. I have lots of health/illness reasons to make this a priority, but mainly I have HATED becoming the kind of person who has to have people carry things for her this year, and want to avoid that becoming my permanent fate.

I did twice-a-week strength training all the way through my initial weight loss but in retrospect don't think much of the plan my personal trainer had me use. I was mostly using light weights and mid-to-high reps. He never suggested progressing up to higher weight levels, and I didn't know enough to ask. I've lifted on and off in an undirected sort of way when I've had the resources since then, which was unfortunately not all that often and not recently. However, a few years back I came into contact with someone who talked to me about lifting heavy and I did just enough during a period a few years ago when I had temporary access to weight lifting equipment to be a total convert.

This time around, I have a gym membership to a place with a very well-equipped weights area, and I found NROL4W and you guys, which was super exciting as I don't know ANY women in real life who lift heavy (though I hope to find some at my new gym). However, reading the threads about the programme, I am really concerned that I just don't have the stamina for the kind of workouts in the books (I have Supercharged as well as NROL4W).

All of which is REALLY REALLY TL;DR to say: I really want to start lifting, and I love the idea of NROL4W. I don't know how to start NROL4W given how compromised my stamina and general fitness is right now, or what to do instead of it so that I can eventually start. Does anyone have any similar experience? Like, maybe you started from a very low level of fitness, and can tell me about how you got on? Or maybe you could suggest what I could do to modify or build up to starting NROL4W?

(I'm so sorry this got so long. I never MEAN to write a novel, but I do it every time. )