Help with Exercise Routine

Hi John. I'm 5' 10" and started my journey somewhere between 210 and 250 lbs. and well over 25% body fat. What worked for me was a combination of things:

1. Log everything in MFP, no matter what. It was eye-opening to me to learn how many calories those "little" snacks that I loved really contained. There were a lot of days where I blew past my calorie goal by mid-afternoon, but I logged it all. Weight, water, exercise, dessert, midnight snack, all of it. I found that having an honest record of it all helped me celebrate the small victories that started in the second week.
2. Make yourself accountable to someone, face-to-face. For me, this meant joining the fitness center at my workplace and signing up for weekly sessions. If I didn't show up, the coach and several of the other members would check with me to see what happened to me. As these people became friends, I looked forward to seeing them and I still appreciate the encouragement they gave me.
3. Start easy. I initially did a lot of bicycling and elliptical machine exercise, because my knees and back couldn't take the strain of walking or running with my extra weight. As I got healthier and the weight began to come off, I found that I could do more and vary my exercise more.
4. Don't leave out strength training. Working your muscles, even with light weight, will help build them up and prevent injuries in both muscle and joint. Don't overdo it, just honestly evaluate what you can do and then push yourself a little.
5. Enjoy every victory. Small improvements will start almost immediately. Rejoice over them and use them to strengthen your resolve to continue.

As for the exercises themselves, look for low-impact activities to start:

• elliptical machine
• bicycling
• walking (if knees permit)
• stairs (if knees permit)
• kettlebell swing
• farmer carry

I had to start with nothing but bicycling on an indoor exercise bike for the first six weeks. It wasn't the most exciting thing, but my back, joints, and muscles were weak from inactivity and would have been injured by more vigorous exercise. I began to see improvement in the second week, which helped keep me going. Now, I'm 160 lbs and 19% body fat, and I recently ran a 5k in 29 minutes. You can do this!

Firstly, congratulations on your initial twenty plus pound loss! I concur with much of what has all ready been said and add the following. If you need lower impact and crave variety water exercises including aerobic classes may be helpful, second if you want adjustable weights for starting out try arizona iced tea bottles the one gallon size. They work well and are very inexpensive. Also to help prevent strains I suggest finding and using a comprehensive stretching program, obviously flexibility will increase in time but you certainly don't want an injury to set you back. Finally I suggest you begin making some long term health goals, since you like to plan. I have found that health and strength goals keep me more focused than overall weight and inches. For example I decided that at the end of this I want to be compact and strong for my size making my trade work less cumbersome (electrician), therefore in addition to mass reduction I am doing bodyweight exercise, cardio focused on endurance, and eventually more training with exernal weights. These aren't a straight jacket but help me with direction.I hope some of my input was helpful. Keep at it and feel free to contact me if you wish.