I am 55, 5'8" and 205 lbs. My goal is to get to 190. I was 225 about eight months ago, but am now consistently at 205. I fall outside the weight charts that say I am overweight, because of my body type. I have always had a lot of muscle mass and big shoulders, so all the charts tell me I am grossly overweight. If I can get down to 190, I am going to be a trim looking person. I had to get back on a program, because my blood sugar was indicating I was diabetic, and my cholesterol was through the roof.
Dietary-wise, I just stopped eating junk food in in my car, snacking at night and have been exercising pretty regularly.
I had been in an exercise program but had to have surgery on a bad shoulder then, then almost as soon as I could begin exercising again, I broke my hand and was only able to pick up a weight training program this past October.
If anyone is interested in getting involved in weight training, I do a program called Koko Fitness, which I think is the best thing I have ever tried.
It has two drawbacks: It is expensive, and it isn't the kind of place where a lot of guys go. It has a trendy, gimmicky feel to it, and I have some friends who are weight trainers who look down their nose at it.
But it works. And for someone who doesn't have a lot of time, it is the best. It is computer controlled, you have a USB drive that your exercise regimen is installed on, and you insert the drive in the exercise machine.
When you exercise, there is a screen you can see that tells you what exercise to do, how to set up the machine, the correct form to use, the weight to set, and then, when you exercise, how many reps and how fast to do them. (you have to keep pace, following an indicator so as you do a curl, for example, you have to do it at a certain speed so the indicator stays in a certain range.
Here is what the machines look like, you can see the screen there:
When you join, you pick out a training goal (lose weight, gain tone, build muscle mass) and they program the USB drive. When you exercise the first session, it does an initial "strength test", where you push as hard as you can at a grouping of four exercises until you simply cannot lift anymore. Then, after that, for the next twelve visits, the machine tells you what to do, how much to do, and how to do it. If you don't feel that the weight given on a certain exercise challenges you, you can increase it, and go from there. It automatically increases the weights over the series of visits.
As you do each exercise for the first time, it puts you through a range of motion drill for that exercise, so whenever you do that exercise after that, it remembers your range of motion.
They take as much guesswork out of it as possible. And the thing I love best about it, is...all I have to do is get out of bed and get to the gym. I get up at 0430, which is a pain for me, because I am a night owl, but that is what it is. It takes twelve minutes to drive there from my house, and when I get there, all I do is plug in my USB drive and go. You can't cheat on it, and you can get the weight portion done in 30-40 minutes (30 if you keep pace and do it right) and then I do 15 minutes on an elliptical machine as a recording talks you through a regimen. I consistently get my heart rate up to 160-170 as a peak, but that is because I really push it.
When done, you back up your USB, which collects your data and presents your progress to you on a website you can login to. Here is the overview you see:
And if you click on a graph, you can see the detail...it is easy to see the time I stopped exercising waiting for my shoulder and hand to heal):
You can also view your stats, both total and within current program:
Or if you drill down to see what your exercise regimen is going to be tomorrow when I go in, I can see this:
If you click on each exercise, it shows you this, which is a flash animation to show you the correct form, etc:
If I sound sold, I am! This is the only thing that has ever worked for me. When I went for a followup, my blood sugar was back within normal limits, and my cholesterol had dropped by a factor of five!
Sure, it is more expensive than a Golds Gym membership, but if you have a membership and don't use it, what good is it? And I don't give a rat's patootie if dedicated weight trainers look down their nose at it...it works for me!