Lifting weights for a beginner

While you're losing weight, you mainly want to concentrate on minimizing muscle loss -- while you can have some "newbie" muscle gain while eating at a deficit, you can't put on a whole heck of a lot of muscle doing it. But just keeping what you have puts you far ahead of where most dieters are when they get to to end-game.

That said, any routine that incorporates overall resistance training of the muscles (either body weight or other weights) will help keep your body convinced that the muscle is essential, and to go after something else while it's trying to find stuff to burn.

You can also go the classic strength training route (barbells). Stronglifts 5x5 and Starting Strength are both highly regarded beginner programs. If you're still at those in a year or two, *then* worry about moving up to an intermediate level. Or bodyweight strength training (You Are Your Own Gym or Convict Conditioning) might be more up your alley. Everybody's different.

P90X is heavy strength training with a bit of cardio while Insanity is heavy cardio with a bit of resistance training. I wouldn't recommend either one for beginners. My favorite is Chalean Extreme. Jillian Michaels has a lot of workouts too but she's more on endurance training rather than strength (i.e light weights, high reps) so I would recommend her if you can't lift more than 10lbs yet. My favorite from her is Jillian Michaels Body Revolution. Both the workouts I mentioned are 90 days program. Hope that helps and good luck in your fitness goal!

Thank you for the advice. I just downloaded the Stronglifts app and hope to have some good results.

minniemickey wrote: »

Thank you for the suggestions.
I was hoping to do something that doesn't involve deadlifts or barbell press. Or can we do it with just dumbells instead of the long rod with weights on the end (sorry don't know if it has a name). Do you think I will be able to achieve same results by using just dumbells in the strong lifts program? Thank you!!

It is possible do do stronglifts with dumbbell variations, but you will find that you will be limited because dumbells don't increase in weight in small increments and at some point it will be too difficult to lift dumbbells into the start position (as opposed to just unracking a barbell).

Why don't you want to use a barbell?

I would highly recommend Jamie Eason's live fit trainer for starting out. You can get it on bodybuilding.com and it's free. I also did Stronglifts which is great too BUT I found it was hard to keep up after a while in a caloric deficit. A lot of my friends are doing Strong Curves (all about the booty) and several swear by NROLFW.

minniemickey wrote: »

Thank you for the inputs! I will look at the other programs mentioned as well.

@auddii I don't know! It just intimidates me. I know its in the head but I don't want to look like a fat girl trying to grab all the attention when using the barbell when I only see hunky men using it at my gym all the time. Also, I heard stories of injuries from not using it correctly. May be when I lose a couple of pounds, I can ask a trainer to show me the form.

I think asking a trainer at a gym is a great idea. I have to admit, now that I've discovered the barbell, I love it! It's definitely intimidating at first, and when I started lifting I was 230lbs, so I definitely understand. But, I love feeling strong!

Staci from nerd fitness had a great series about strength training 101 (feel free to ignore everything about eating clean):
http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/02/28/strength-training-101/

And this is great for addressing being the girl in the weight section:
http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/03/05/101-equipment/

I was in the same boat and bought Chalean Extreme because I liked Chalene from her Turbo Jam DVDs. I LOVE it. I have gone through the program several times. I am 39 and a I had already lost over 60 lbs. I got Chalean Extreme when I started maintaining my weight and I went from a size 6/7 to a 3/4 because it tightened everything up. It lacks a little in the ab workout though.

I also liked X-TrainFit but the workouts a kinda long and slow. If I hadn't done Chalean Extreme first I don't think I would have had a good enough foundation for XTrainFit.