I've been wanting to go to the gym for the longest time, but alas, I has no money. So, what are some cheap, homemade options to lose weight and build muscle? I mean, I don't wanna look like a body builder, and I don't even care if the muscle is defined, I'm just tired of having no energy. Lol. Not to mention the back and chest pains, and breathing issues from being overweight. And, it bugs da living daylight outta me when my thighs rub. LOL

I'm struggling with the same thing myself. My doc says T will speed up the metabolism. Now that it's starting to warm up some, my girl and I are planning to start walking every night ... start there. I know places like WalMart have hand weights that go up to about 12 lbs and are fairly cheap ... We can be weight loss buds if ya wanna...

While I am fairly fit now and work out a lot it was not always that way. I started by walking like suggested, it helped a lot. As soon as I could walk a long distance (over an hour and a half really fast) I moved toward weights and the gym, mostly becasue I didn't have 2 hours a day to walk with the light/dark issues , it was too late when I got off work. Then start the weights like suggested and watch what you eat, there are a few free programs online that count calories for you fitday was one not sure if its still around. Combo of eating and walking will get you a long way. Then you can decide about weights, I bought them fairly cheap as I just bought the plates as I needed them.
Myles

I bought a book called walk the weight off. but I haven't started the program yet. I'm mainly afraid it'll be useless. lol.  Have you heard of that book?
I wouldn't mind a weight loss bud at all ^.^

Myles. how long did you walk when you first started off?

another thing. my brother told me that if you don't sweat, you don't lose weight. is that true? Whenever I do go for walks, it's usually at night because it's cooler then.. so I dun sweat and I can walk farther...I just never kept it up enough for it to see if it was effective. lol.

When I started walking probably a mile a day and then maybe more than once a day if I had the time. I didn't always sweat, it's hard to when walking if its cold out. When I did hit the gym I went for cardio and a small amount of weights then now mostly weights its been about 10 years, yeah I'm old transitioning at 40 well 39! Now I lift up to 5 or 6 days a week time and do cario about 30 minutes. I know the fitness thread isn't too active here but there are some fitness buffs.  I would like to get as fit as possible before chest surgery.
Myles

Ah, okies. ^.^ Thank you. Lol. btw, 39 isn't old *shakes head*. What gym do you go to? how much is the membership...?

Sweat isn't what burns fat, it's the amount of calories you burn. You'll see athletes packing themselves in layers of clothes to sweat off the weight, that's actually just dehydration. Sweat is a good thing, but not a necessary thing.

ahhh. thank you. ^.^

Cut out ALL sodas for water.
Do not eat candy, crisps, or sweet pasteries.
Eat food that you need to chew more.
Walk Everywhere.

That's what I did, and lost over 30 pounds from.

Right now I am at 24 hour fitness, it's only $99 a year but that is because several years ago I paid a large membership fee I think $250. After transition I am moving my membership to a gym that is closer to my house, it will be $99 joining and $28 a month. I know the big ones always have specials so I would check that out. If you don't have a ton of cash you can use walking and so on for sometime to drop the weight.
Myles

The key to losing weight is not what you do, its doing it on a regular basis and sticking to it.  Walking is good.  Excellent  in many ways.  It burns off the same number of calories as running (it just takes you longer to do it, but a mile run and a mile walk are about the same in caloric output), its low impact, and its very human.

You just have to set out time and do it on a constant basis.  And vary it.  Most day's you'll walk say a couple of miles, once a week, do two or three times that, and take a day off for rest too.  Or to do something different.

I like biking, and I ride all the time, but I do that for conditioning more than anything, of course I tend to ride to the next town on a wandering path go to a brew pub there for a spell, ride back, meander some more, and stop at my favorite brew pub a couple of blocks from my house when I'm done - say about 20 miles in all, so its not like I'm losing weight with that regime.

For muscles, depends on if you want them toned, or if you want guns.  For toning, light weights at a high level of reps, for bigger muscles, progressively heavier weights - like to the straining point - fewer times.

And you do have to watch the food.  When I have like 20 shows in a month, and that's 20 trucks to load, and unload, and 20 shows to set up and run (and I've put a pedometer on myself and I can walk 25 miles on a show day) I still gain weight because of the backstage food deal.

Tekla's right. Also, you don't need gyms or expensive exercise equipment. There are a lot of exercises you can do without anything, like push-ups and crunches. You can improvise things, like hook a long piece of rubber tubing to a doorway and do resistance exercises. Weights can be made with anything heavy - bottles filled with sand or water. And you can strengthen wrists and forearms by tying a piece of rope to a dowel at one end and a weight at the other, and reeling it up.

Food is all important. Stay away from junk food and pop, and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Lean protein is good too.

Like Tekla said, consistency is the important part.

Dennis

I strongly suggest the bands or rubber tubing Dennis mentioned. It is inexpensive and you can get a full body work out of it, legs, arms, back! I used these when traveling. Definitely don't think of the gym as a needed thing it can be expensive and there is  plenty to do at home! The food is really important, check out a free food tracker, you'll be amazed how much less you start to eat when you have to log it. If nothing else cut out the crap food, over processed stuff like chips, soda, too much bread and so on.
Myles

I've got the "just water" down. Though every now and again, I do like to treat myself to a glass of soda or two.

As for eating healthy, that's really hard to do here. My brothers and mom are doing great sizewize. Mom because she starves herself, though. My handicapped brother shovels down loads of food and is still thinner than our older brother -.- So the two chefs of the house, my mom and brother, don't cook healthy meals. They're always fattening. I guess I could just eat less

For lifting and stuff, do I do it until I'm tired and can't anymore, oris there a certain ammount I do each day type thing..? As of this moment, I don't care if my muscles are toned or buff. they're practically nonexistant at teh moment, so anything will make me happy. 

the only reason I want to go to the gym is to watch the guys.    but since that's way outta budget, I'm happy with home made remedies. lol. So, for the rubber tubing... where can I pick that up? is there a kit I can buy that helps with setup? lol.

thank ya'll very much for all the advice. it really helps. ^.^

Edit: OH! and, I was wondering... are pretzles okay? XP my family has a munchie bug.

I've been trying to lose weight for 2 months... to no avail. I cut out all soda, which was quite significant considering I had been drinking about 40oz of it per day, and we're not talking diet soda; I started eating vegetables and fruits, which I NEVER did before, and went to the gym every day for an hour. Nothing. Notta.

Now, I'm not saying those things won't work for you. It's quite possible they will. I'm beginning to think it was the estrogen that sabotaged my weight loss, and as I'm back on T now, I'm hoping it will start to take care of things.

As per cheap exercise, yes, walking is good, though rollerblading, if you have the means to do so, is supposed to be one of the best calorie-burning, low-impact activities out there. I'd do it if I weren't surrounded by 24-7 snow. Apart from that, if you're looking to build muscle as well as lose weight, I've heard great things about the P90X exercise program... pm me if you want the link to where you can get it for free. The only equipment it requires, as far as I've heard, is a free weight or two, which you can get cheaply enough at Wal-Mart.

Good luck, bro.

SD

pretzels are not okay, they're basically carbs with salt..
You want to make sure you watch your salt intake as well as your sugar intake as if you consume too much salt you can retain water and that'll look like excess body-fat and weigh even more than that. Just cutting down on salt and upping water can cause people to drop over 10 pounds of just water-weight.

I would, instead of munching foodstuffs, nom carrots, chew sugar-free gum, or just keep a waterbottle around and keep drinking the stuff. It is really hard to drink too much water, it can only harm you under the "right" circumstances.

I did P90X  and loved it, if you can get it especially for free (got mine a while back when it was still over $100) do it. It doesn't take much equipment you can do it with bands or a few free weights. If you can't or don't have a place to do pull ups you'll need a band. It also has everything set up for you what to do each day and so on. I must admit I can't stand yoga so I skipped that one (hurt myself within 5 minutes of doing it the first time). I have the nutrition guide that goes with it, tells you what to eat but you should be able to find that online also. Even if you can't go by the food guide use the workouts they are great. If you find it and its missing the order in which to do the videos let me know and I cam PM the list to you.
Myles
PS when I lost my weight I cut the carbs and sugar.

Quote from: Miniar on March 17, 2009, 04:46:53 AM
Cut out ALL sodas for water.
Do not eat candy, crisps, or sweet pasteries.
Eat food that you need to chew more.
Walk Everywhere.

That's what I did, and lost over 30 pounds from.

Just cutting soda is worth a ton by itself if you drink a lot of it. It's also far easier to drop than people think.

I did that, and reduced the rest of my bad stuff. I just made sure anything I snack on was not extremely fattening (or at least kept it to a minimum) and have been losing weight for a while now.

I forget that I do exercise, but not regularly enough.,

Quote from: Jake Grimm on March 17, 2009, 12:56:05 PM
For lifting and stuff, do I do it until I'm tired and can't anymore, oris there a certain ammount I do each day type thing..? As of this moment, I don't care if my muscles are toned or buff. they're practically nonexistant at teh moment, so anything will make me happy. 

Here is my advise which is really all about keeping it simple, and approach this from a lot of angles.

If you manage 30 minutes a day of any exersise you want I think that would be a good start - aim to get your heart rate up some. If you are physically feeling like you are working something then you are burning energy. You don't need to hurt. Variety is good.

Any activity is going to be better than no activity. Also try to simply move around more in your day to day life - take stairs instead of lifts, go talk to someone instead of emailing them, vacume the house (house work is good for burning energy), go shopping with your mom and push the trolley, get off your bus a block early and walk, cut down tv time and go to the library ..etc...simple but I think you will really notice the difference.

As for food, if you cut out a lot of unhealthy snacking that will be good. You might need to think about learning to cook. Maybe prepare a dish as part of dinner every night like a side salad or vegetables? That way you can get a more balanced meal instead of just having fatty food. You don't need to cut things out completely, just mangage your portions and eat lots of the good things like vegetables. Also remember that starving yourself won't really work that well as all this does is slow your metabolism and reduce your weight loss. Other ideas include if you have soda go for diet, switch to low fat milk, reduce suger in your hot drinks like coffee, don't eat so much cheese, fill up on fiber (from veges, or cereals), eat more whole grains instead of plain bread. It will all add up.

I hope things go well for you!

I looked around at walmart and found some things I could use, minus the moneytree to afford them XP. But first I plan on getting a bike.

Took notes on everything ya'll suggested onto a pad of paper that stays on my desk. Lol. So I should help to remind me. Thank you all for your advice!