Weight Lifting??

grrr i had this long post and managed to close the tab. duh. Yes bodybuilding.com is awesome. on the main page, at the left, select, find a plan and just follow the instructions. Once you have a plan, at the top of the page, select Super Site. then at the left again select exercises, search for your exercises and they have videos that show you and tell you exactly what to do, demonstrated by a woman. Ignore all the supplement stuff.

Here's a secret about the muscle heads. They're so busy looking at themselves they wont even notice you. If they do, all they'll think is "cool for her, for trying weights." When i first started, i had a month of panic attacks before i could go and when i did, i was shaking. I weighed 286 lbs. nobody laughed at me, nobody even noticed me. I love lifting weights, I use the book Body By Design by Kris Gethin, who is the editor in chief of bodybuilding.com, which has a 3-phase basic plan and a really simple nutrition plan. I've lost 31 lbs in the first 9 weeks. But any newer book should work, go check out and see what the library has. You'll love weight lifting. also don't worry about bulking up. Unless you plan on taking steroids, it's impossible for women to get huge muscles. But the more Lean Body Mass you have, the higher your metabolism and the more efficient your body will burn fat. THere's nothing but good in lifting weights.

Good luck, I think you'll love it.

weight lifting always intimidated me too. What I ended up doing is taking a class through the YMCA. Our local Y offers a class called "Women on Weights" I have really enjoyed it. You might want to look into you local Y. Even if your not a member you can take a class. They might charge an extra $10.

One thing I have noticed is a huge change in my body shape...in a good way....good luck

One thing my old trainer told me is that if you are initially trying to lose weight, to do lots of reps at smaller weights. Like, initially I started off doing bicep curls like this:

5 lbs
Set 1 - 20 reps
60 second rest
Set 2 - 25 reps
rest
Set 3 - 20 reps

That way you can do them a little faster (hence using lighter weights, so you don't hurt yourself!) and it's both strengthening and cardio. It definitely worked. I'll be doing that again now that I'm going back to the gym.

The other thing I do to help with toning is to use either ankle weights or small hand weights when I'm doing any kind of cardio workout (at least at home where no one sees me look foolish) - Sometimes I just turn on music and dance around and fist pump with my 5 pounders :-) I look like an idiot, but it works!

Yeah bodybuilding .com rocks. iam not shocked that the way hey say to eat is different rom what you may have heard. most of them and body Building meaning ! huge muscles! so they need a huge in take of protein.

How ever that is not a bad thing. if you want to work towards a nice lean body. I have heard a little bit about the zig zag thing. But from the few years I have been learning about fitness and health and that stuff the common one that worked for me was consistency, so keep good clean meals very two-three hours and try to keep them with correct portions. Its really hard to go about this food intake, because every body is different and we need to learn to listen to our body. Which I have found an easy way to get your body in a routine-ish thing. Get an alarm clock and set it to go off every two to three hrs and have a meal at that time.

And example of listening to your body, my sister can eat heavy stuff [like bread, rice, complex carbs] at lunch and feel good, and have energy afterward. She watch how the food impacted her, and diner she found a light meal to be best. [salad, fish, veggies]

And I feel best with a light meal at lunch, if I eat something heavy I pretty much pass out for the day...
Know I know that was n9t a lot of your question... how ever food is important it is about 80% of what will help you get to your health/fitness goal.

As or training and working out weights and all that I would love to help you!

Dead lifts are,
stand with your feet shoulder width apart.
Toes forward NOT turned out
The dumbbells will be a few inches in front of your feet if you are to look down and check.
You will then squat down with your arms going on the out side of your knees [and arms stay straight do not bend them.
Then lift up with you legs.
When you up drive you pelvis forward
and retract [tighen] your shoulder baldes togeter.
That would be one.

lol srry didnt mean for that to be so long , i really hope it helped out ^^
And i hear ya out! Iam a chick who love lift weights! and dont want to be laughed at either! I do lost of rutines Iam working on a web site I hope to have running monday. with a program or this month! ill post later? if your intrested?

Subbing to this thread. Great info! Thanks!