I need some advice about gym work outs. I want to lose 40 pounds in 250 days. (My youngest daughter is getting married June 2010 and I want to look nice in the pictures!) I am currently a beginning runner using the couch to 5k running program. I do that M-W-F. I want to work out more than just the three days per week but I am not sure what I should be focusing on...weight machines? bike? swimming? My gym has every type of machine and class you can think of! Any suggestions? Thanks!

I like to do circuit training. You can find a lot of circuit training programs, some that you need a gym for and some that you don't. The point is to do strength training and aerobic activity at the same time, moving quickly from one exercise to the other. For instance, today I did this circuit:

10 min warm up on elliptical

shoulder press

rows

squats

3 min on bike

bench press

lateral raises

dumbell flies

leg extentions

3 min jogging on treadmill

10 min cool down on treadmill

stretching

I do about 20 reps of each, then move on to the rest. I try to do the circuit twice. I wear a heart rate monitor and I burned 500 calories in 45 minutes!

Thank you so much! I am going to print this out and take it with me to the gym! I need to buy a heart monitor - what brand do you have? I have the GoWearFit and that helps me a lot but it doesnt tell my heart rate. I don't know if the monitor on the treadmil is very accurate.

Mine is made by Polar and I think it was about $50, but it has a feature that prevents cross-talk with other monitors if you are in a spinning class or on a cardio machine next to someone else who has the same brand. Make sure you get one with a chest-strap, they are much more accurate.

Recently I've been doing a workout on the treadmill that burns a lot of calories and I think it will leave you pretty satisified...although it may not interest you if you're also running. I use a treadmill that has an incline capability. Put it up to a really high incline...start at maybe an 8 or so if yours goes to 15. Then set the speed so that you are still walking, but right before you would have to start jogging (this is about 4 mph for me). After a few minutes, do a minute at a lower speed and less of an incline...then go back up to a higher incline than you were at before. Repeat. It's kind of like an interval workout. I go for about 50 minutes (around 3 miles). I'll do 10-15 at high resistance, than back it down for about 3 minutes and repeat. I burn right around 1,000 calories in 50 minutes.

I would combine circuit training 3 days a week with maybe 2 pure cardio days.

By circuit training I mean free weights and whole body compound moves. It is pointless standing around doing bicep curls that work 1 muscle you need to do stuff like squatting whilst pressing a barbell over your head, lunging with dumbells, pushups, stuff like that. Move fast, lift as heavy as you can possibly manage, and try to put together a routine that goes for say 45 minutes. Include some running on the treadmill or some spinning in it, maybe between sets of exercises. Your heartrate shoudl be right up there - this type of workout is cardio/strength combined, not slow like traditional strength training.

On the other days, take it a bit easier, do a nice slow jog on the treadmill for instance.

This will be hard and at first the circuits might actually make you feel ill and VERY stiff and sore, but it really really works. Working one muscle at a time on the machines is not nearly so effective - except for the leg machines - leg press, leg curl, squat machine etc. The ones that just work one or two upper body muscles are really not the best use of your time.

Edited October 23, 200916 yr by Jachut

+1, this above is very good advice.

Once you get going, I might suggest hiring a trainer for one or two sessions. I did that and we went over my goals, he then wrote out an alternating A/B plan for me and showed me how to do each exercise properly, with a focus on whole body core training and cardio/strength combos. Very much worth it for me, I'm in the best shape of my life now, wish I was this fit at 20, lol.

Thanks Everyone!! Great advise!! I appreciate your help!!