What to do at the gym

See if your gym has an introduction of showing you the machines and weights, mine did so with a trainer and I told her I wanted to lift weights and learn how to use the elliptical. It's not a perfect routine and I've since added to it, and she did give me the hard sell to hire her but I ignored it. Honestly, I'd do a combination of exercises. If your gym doesn't do that look up exercises on You Tube to learn how to use machines and watch people do other ones you may be interested in doing. Take a few classes that sound good and see what you think. I took a Body Pump class on vacation with my uncle and it was a lot of fun though I prefer listening to my own music when working out so I still lifted weights too. Most of the strength machines have information about how to use them. The cardio equipment you can learn just by trying and watching others. I braved the stair treadmill and love that thing now, I can't believe it used to intimidate me! Also, there's a thread in the exercise forum about weight lifting programs if you're interested in free weights.

Depends on your fitness goals. What do you want to achieve?

BabyMama021514 wrote: »

I want to lose 40 pounds but get tone too

The goal to lose 40lbs is done in the kitchen not in the gym. You lose weight by creating a calorie deficit and this is primarily achieved by monitoring your calorie intake.

What exactly do you mean by 'get tone'? To be honest I've never really understood what people mean when they say this. I'm assuming they mean build muscle but so often you'll hear people saying 'I don't want muscles, I just want to get toned'. What exactly is your goal specifically? building muscle will give you a more defined physique and losing fat will show off more of those muscles.