Run Fat Boy, Run!

A couple of years ago I was 220 lbs. I’m about 5′7″ – so I was pretty overweight.

A combination of poor diet, stress, depression and gym trips got me down to about 175 lbs. I cruised along for a while, but then injured my shoulder in a skiing accident (jumping over a picnic table) and was out of the gym for 4 months or so. Just as I got back, I had my gall-bladder removed.

Now I’m just getting back to the gym 4 months later. I’ve been ordered by my doctor to hit the gym twice a week, doing mostly cardio. I’m to stay away from abdominal and back exercises, as my scars from my laprascopic surgery aren’t healed properly, the’ll need another 3 months or so to get to the point where they’ll be stretchy.

Everything else though is fair game.

So – I’m back to the gym. I’m currently at 186 lbs, but I look larger as I’ve lost whatever muscle tone I had built up. My fitness goals are as follows:

1) Build my muscle tone in my arms, chest, shoulders and legs.

2) Lose some weight. Rough target is 160 lbs.

3) Tighten up my abs – this is going to have to be a lower priority as I can’t just hit them with lots of work, I need to do it slowly and carefully.

4) Fix my posture.

So far my plan is thus:

Tuesdays

Cardio 10-20 minutes (about all I can do, on elliptical or stationary bike)

Stretching in 30 second rounds interspersed with skipping or jogging in place in 1 minute rounds

3 sets of weights on arms, freeweights for now. Currently at 20 lbs per arm.

3 sets of weights on one other muscle group of my choice.

Thursdays

So far same as tuesdays.

As things go along I’ll update this. I may add other authors later if friends want to get onboard.