Not much unlike batman

Ok so for a few years now I have wanted to get into shape. I have tried and been defeated many times now and I am fed up. The plan this time is to not throw myself all in, I want to start off very easy and gradually build up. Once I have built up good habits then I will ramp up the intensity. I am going to start off with a small change to my diet, I normally eat whatever I feel like at any time I please, this could mean eating ridiculous amounts in one day or very little in a day and it tends to be crap food I am eating. So now I plan to have a healthy lunch everyday, it will most likely be a mix of veg (tomatoes, cucumber, celery, carrots etc) and fruit (oranges, apples, strawberries and grapes) with a tuna or chicken samwhich. It's not a drastic change to my diet but it's one I feel like I could stick to fairly easily. My second change is going to be I will take a shortish walk (20 or so minutes) in the morning and then in the evening. I actually don't mind walking so I feel this is also an easy change to stick to. Lastly I am going to start doing corrective exercises, I have horrible posture. I have an Anterior pelvic tilt and a medial rotation of the upper arm. So I decided before jumping into any intense exercise this would be a good start and will make it easier when I do decide to jump in properly. The plan is for this to eventually end in a complete diet overhaul, me running 3-4 times a week and me following a decent fitness routine (haven't yet decided if I want to focus on endurance or strength) Any help, advice, tips or tricks you have for me would be greatly appreciated. Also anybody who has had posture problems before and knows of any good programs or particular exercises that helped I would love to know.

So me and my girlfriend are looking to start eating better, Her for weight loss and I am just going to be doing it alongside her. At the moment both of our diets are horrible, I am just lucky that I can't seem to put on weight no matter how hard I try lol (Not entirely sure that makes me lucky either ) She wants to stay away from processed foods entirely which I agree is a good idea but not sure how manageable that will be for the both of us. Her work patterns will make it very hard as it is because the days she works varies and she also works nights at the moment, I also think that it will be hard for us to stay motivated to be preparing food 3x a day. At the moment i am thinking things like porridge, fruit salads and toast for breakfast meals. We can rotate them, None are hard to prepare and all 3 aren't exactly horrible. As for lunch and tea I am really unsure, anything I can think of will have some preparation time with it and I think that is where we fail. Any really simple, fast and cheap ideas you guys have for these would be greatly appreciated. Not everything needs to be super fast but I'd like to have them options there.

If 6 is your max at your current level you shouldn't be doing 6 reps per set, low reps high sets is definitely the best way to increase your rep count.

Yeah and i don't doubt you can get very good programmes written by somebody, but unless you re-evalute with said person at least once a month then you could be holding yourself back.

I am really suprised people are advocating this to be honest, in my opinion you are much better off spending time researching and designing your own plan. My workouts need constant tweeking to help me progress and if i didn't take the time out to set goals and research what i need to do to reach these goals i would be miles behind what i am now. Having a personal trainer is a much better idea as they can monitor your progress and change your workout accordingly. At the end of the day though you are the best person to create a routine for you.

I am not the best to give advice here but i will give you my 2 cents anyway Everyone is different so the program that yields the best results for me could not work for you, so i would suggest finding a program that you like the sound of and stick with it for at least 1 month. That should be an appropriate amount of time to decide whether or not it is the right program for you. Stronglifts is a program that many swear by so if you are interested in using weights it is definitely worth checking out. If you would rather do bodyweight exercises then i think it would be best to follow the begginers bodyweight circuit on this website and from there try to design your own workout. A book i purchased that helped me a lot when i first started is called: you are your own gym by mark lauren, its a really good book with hundreds of bodyweight exercises and it includes some basic-advanced workouts you can follow, it also has some basic nutrition information and advice on building your own routine.

I second this, it's exactly what i have done.

Oh yeah i forgot to add get a pull up bar When i started doing pull ups i saw massive increases in my overall upper body strength

I do calisthenics because i like the idea of having full control of my body, lifting weights to me just seems that all you accomplish from it is the ability to lift weight and to be honest, when am i ever going to need to bench press 300lb? To me it seems a useless skill and is only good if you workout for asthetic reasons. On the otherhand BW exercises teach you how to us and control your body, which can help in so many day to day activities. Just want to add i do use free weights (never machines) aswell but only once a week because i do think a mixture of the two will obtain the best possible results no matter what your goal is.

I will try this thanks, it will give me some encouragement to work on my handstand balance too lol.

Whilst i am a huge advocate of bodyweight training i would also suggest that you invest in a weight set, i found weights to be really good for rapid strength gains when i first started. If you do decide to invest in weights i would suggest doing compound lifts over isolation as they translate better into real world activities. A pull up bar is also a really good idea if you don't already have one, i think most people here would agree that pull ups are great for building upper body strength. As for your endurance running is a pretty safe bet lol, there are some great programs like couch 2 5k that can really help get you started. I found the begginers bodyweight circuit ok to begin with but really it's designed to help weight loss over building strength, i found that once i was about a month in i had to design my own plan that suited my needs, if you need help designing a bodyweight routine the best place to look would be the bodyweight training section as there is some really knowlegable and helpful people over there. Good luck and try and have fun with it lol.

Yeah i agree with sylph. Perhaps you could just fit in mini sessions every now and then or do 1 particular lift for a couple of short sets everyday or two.

Not sure why what i wrote is inside the quote above lol.