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I've started exercising

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pezar
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22 Nov 2010, 8:45 pm

I found a cheap gym, and I go in every Monday, Wed, and Fri and try to work out on the elliptical machines as much as I can before my legs give out. The two days I've been there so far, I can stand about 2 minutes and 15 seconds before I crap out, but the second day I did it at 4 mph and the first I was doing it so slowly that the machine kept switching off, which it does below about 3.2 mph. Right now I'm trying to build endurance, since I'm so badly out of shape, and then once I can do maybe 30 minutes on the machine I'll try for fat burn. I also altered my diet, no more processed, precooked meats, I cook all my stuff myself. Since I'm living solely on SSI, that will save me a lot of money, too. I have a microwave for defrosting, a small electric grill, and a rice steamer for the Asian jasmine rice I eat.



sgrannel
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22 Nov 2010, 10:35 pm

Elliptical machines are pretty good. I could only stay on about 10 minutes when I first started, and I had been running regularly for years before that. If you stay on as long as you can, you will see a significant endurance improvement even in 1 week.


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sluice
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22 Nov 2010, 11:47 pm

Good job. If you can, rotate what you do everyday, so you can stress other muscle groups. Do something like riding an exercise bike, walking on a treadmill, or do those climbing machines at whatever level you can do to get your heartrate up. You will get better results and won't get bored and fatigued from the same exercise everyday. :)



auntblabby
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23 Nov 2010, 12:28 am

you would do better to walk for an hour each day, with enough intensity to break a sweat. then after a few months of that, i'd start on the machines.



pezar
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24 Nov 2010, 4:13 pm

sluice wrote:
Good job. If you can, rotate what you do everyday, so you can stress other muscle groups. Do something like riding an exercise bike, walking on a treadmill, or do those climbing machines at whatever level you can do to get your heartrate up. You will get better results and won't get bored and fatigued from the same exercise everyday. :)


I'm already fatigued from the elliptical, so I did the treadmill today. 4 minutes and 30 seconds at 3 mph. I'm not up to the point where I'm breaking a sweat quite yet, but I hope to get there within the next few weeks. You've gotta realize that I'm EXTREMELY out of shape-climbing three flights of stairs results in me having to pause for 5 minutes to catch my breath. I'll have to see where the stairmaster machines are at this gym. Maybe after a few days on the treadmill I'll try that.