She wants "muscle mass, more so than weight loss", but I did overlook the knee issues. Actually making measurable progress is a great motivator too, though.

I've skimmed this 3 times and can't find your body weight, height, or any pics currently.

If you are very fat, just work on getting your activity level up and work on building long-term sustainable dietary changes. Watch a lot of meal prep videos on youtube. This might be a good place to start, but obviously there's a ****ton of resources on the web:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ClassyChefStef

You are not a competitive bodybuilder; you need a diet that actually tastes good and you can easily comply with, but that also is conducive to fat loss/muscle building. You shouldn't feel like these changes are some kind of "suffering", but just a new thing you plan on doing for many years to come.

In this case of very fat, just have some fun in the gym, do a few sessions with a PT, try out a lot of exercises and try to get good at them(including barbells), and do some group exercise classes. Women who are brand new almost always have very strange insecurities and embarrassment when they start visiting the gym regularly, even the young, in decent shape, and relatively athletic ones. I bet a lot of them would be more compliant if it weren't for the self-consciousness. Do whatever you gotta do to alleviate this, even if that means showing up and dicking around or messing around in yoga. Your mobility/flexibility is going to be dog**** and being megafat is going to make it a lot worse and you honestly won't be able to adapt to the workload of a hard barbell training program for a while.


If you are not megafat, then start with a focusing on learning the barbell lifts as efficiently and quickly as possible so you can begin a barbell training program like GSLP.


I'm kinda suspecting from your OP you may not have the lifestyle and sort of baseline fitness where you can start a barbell training program within the next 2 weeks; it might be more like 2 months. That's totally okay. Spend a lot of time just getting good at the lifts you're going to do as part of the program with lighter weights before you formalize it in a program of progressive resistance.

I have to admit I kinda overlooked the muscle mass part myself.

Any pictures of your current status (or someone similar to you) and your ideal physique OP?

and hell a typical bikini girl workout from some ****ty fitness website is probably fine too given your knee issues. It's going to be hard to squat twice a week with that concern.

Squatting is def out. Knees can't do it.

I'm 5' 1.5". I've been 148 lbs for the past 2 months. I've lost about 75 lbs from diet, walking, cardio and yoga and free weights, all YouTube videos.

Not fat, but some hanging skin. I do have muscle tone in upper body now but want to go to next level.

I don't know how to load a pic. If I can figure it out I'll take a pic from the gym tonight.

You have to upload the pic here and then post the link

Or maybe I could send it to you and you do it?

I don't get any techy shiat. I suppose I could try it in a little while if you don't wanna help a poor untech savvy person.

Seems a little aggressive with the multiple activities each day.

5'1 148 is not megafat, you can probably proceed to something with barbells pretty damn soon.


Have you actually tried it?

Don't discount yourself right away; you might find it actually has positive effects on your knee health.

If you can find a way to send it to me I could do it, but on Imgur it's only like 2 clicks so it shouldn't be too hard.

Should there be more rest days? Thats why I'm asking. Just joined the gym on Sunday and I'm very excited to try all they have to offer.

How many days is optimal?

Okay I'll try it. Would I have better success with my iphone or pc?

No I haven't tried it. I've been working out with free weights at home, starting w 6lbs and have worked my way to 10 lbs ea.

Thank you - I will try - personal trainer Wed night.

When you say barbells what do you mean exactly? small dumbells or the long bar that you put weights on?

I'd increase the protein goal by about 25 grams a day and dont go below that while keeping calories about the same. This is easy to do if you focus on eating mostly lean meat and vegetables.

I skimmed over a lot of the other replies, but the advice about doing more resistance exercise is right.

How long do you expect to be in the gym to accomplish all of this?

This method is for pc. I've heard it's also really easy to post pics using tapatalk on your phone but I haven't tried that yet

2 hours but I'm in no rush. 1 hr for the water aerobics class, which may be a waste of time if it doesn't get my heart rate up, but I'll try it. And then 1 hr max to work on upper body.

Yeah I have resisted downloading tapatalk on my phone, maybe I'll do it at lunchtime.

TY for all of your assistance/advice.

I was about to say I do not like protein shakes - have a hard time getting them down, but I will work on more protein via real food.

Thank you for the advice - I didn't know how much ****ing protein I should be consuming.

Getting enough protein is important for body composition. Resistance training is also important for that. Protein shakes are fine too, but eating real food is better.

In general, other than for a brief warmup, it's better to do cardio in a separate session or after weights.

A barbell is the big bar. A dumbell is the little one. Most of us here use barbells for all the big compound movements.

What I'd like to look like, tho I know I wouldn't look quite like this


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Here's some current body shots. I can take better ones in gym clothes if needed


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