Need advice

Calorie deficit for weight loss. Exercise for health and fitness.

Strength training while eating at a deficit helps you maintain lean muscle. Cardio is good for building endurance & burns a decent amount of calories.

Eating less is far easier than trying to burn enough calories thru exercise alone. Many people here eat less and exercise.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

krystleLD25 wrote: »

ive had a couple of people offer to go to the gym with me so far to help me get started!! im really excited. would you happen to know of any books that will be good to read?

The New Rules of Lifting: For Women

brcossette wrote: »

If your goal is to lose weight i recommend starting with some diet and cardio first then get into weight training. weight training alone won't help you lose weight.

Weight training helps you burn a calories, not a ton but it's a longer burn, you burn I believe 48hours after you even stop lifting (even while you're sleeping). I'd still do cardio though for cardiovascular healthy and for the extra calories you miss when counting.

When I first started lifting I kept it pretty simple, 3-4 days of lifting:

1 Day of legs: squats (firstly just with body weight) then slowly added weight on. If you go to the gym you can do Hack Squats (me: 110lbs, started at 90lbs), assisted bar squats or free weight bar squat (start with the bar and then add weights in 5-10 lb increments). This will also help you with your core and glutes (hehe). I also like to do the hipsled, when I first started I could only do 160 lbs, I slowly over the course of the last 4-5 months have raised it to 500 lbs. Calf Raises: Again, start low and move up from there, I started with 4 sets of 15 reps doing 160, now I'm up to 400 lbs of 4 sets of 10. (all weight programs usually say 4 sets of 6-8 reps maxing out weights.. to the point you can barely finish the last couple). Then I do a couple of the leg machines and end with 15 minutes on the elliptical doing the "hill mode" at level 15.

1 Day of Back and Bi: Again, this is something you'll just want to start with low weights to find what you can do. Lat Pull Down: I can only do like 100lbs on this, but I started at 50lbs. 4 sets of 10 reps. Seated Rows, again I can only do 90-110lbs. Then I do the back machines (they usually have a diagram showing which muscles the machines target). For bi's I just do free weights, curls ect. I use some machines that I don't know the name of. Lol.

1 Day of Chest, Shoulders and Tri's: Bench pressing.. the bar is 45 so start there and then again add in 5-10 lb increments. I personally can only do the bar and then 40 lbs (85). Chest free weight machines. Shoulder machines, then you can hold heavy dumbells and just shrug 4 sets of however many reps you can do. Tri's dumbells and machines. Really, it'll be easy once you just get in there, look at the machines and dink around with them. You've got this, even the mostly beastly of gym rats started out where you are too. Don't get discouraged, keep going, keep trying, ask questions... people at the gym are usually more than happy to answer questions.

Lots of facilities also offer a kettle bell and spin combo.
HIIT is also great to add once a week! It will build endurance up greatly.