Lost 125lbs now the hard part, advice needed!

[AlexH]

Today is my 37th birthday and I'm a bit drunk from the party so thanks alcohol for getting me to sign up and stop lurking on these great forums!

The day after my 36th bday I jumped on a scale for the first time in years and the number freaked me out 322.4, I decided to fix it as sort of a year goal and have had brilliant success. Today I'm ~195 and feel great, I lost the weight by following a mostly Paleo diet without even knowing I was doing it until it was pointed out to me. Some pics *I haven't tracked down a before shot yet as I hid from cameras it seems. http://imgur.com/a/iAu7Y

I figured I'd continue this bday goal nonsense and this year focus on getting healthy. I've smoked for 20+ years and tomorrow morning that stops, this will suck I'm sure but I need to get past that. I'm fairly lucky for someone who was 100+ overweight and smoked his whole life to be in decent health and have some noob fitness questions, also up for any advice from any ex-smokers!

1. With the weight loss sometimes I feel lost in my new body, my balance is somewhere between horrible and embarrassing. For me this is actually somewhat dangerous as I repair machinery for a living and am often climbing around machines with heavy and expensive things in hand. Any thoughts on ways to improve this?

2. Where to start!? Like any good geek I learn by reading everything available to me, when looking into the diet info I realized the whole world is selling me stuff and it made no sense at all for them for me to get thinner. This has turned me horribly skeptical bugger when looking into exercise/gym programs. I'm currently leaning towards crossfit as the community aspect is appealing but I cannot work myself to the point where I couldn't do my physical job, it's my own 1 person company so I have to worry about silly things like being broken from DOMS or hurting myself slightly.

3. I'd really like to be able to touch my toes! Actually the whole flexibility thing sounds great but I haven't seen anything outside of yoga that really works on it.

4. I've gotten weaker as I've lost weight. I'm looking for advice on good material to read over, is Starting Strength really the best go for beginners?

I've taken 2 weeks off as a get started program that starts tomorrow, I'm hoping for a day on day off exhaust myself body weight training to try and get into basic shape before I jump into the more advanced stuff. Thanks for reading all this!

[Razor]

Welcome and happy birthday!

1)Improving balance? Lots of things. Spend the time to practice. Walk on the edge of a side walk, balance on a bosu ball. Slowly go from a standing position to a superman and back. Do yoga. stand on your tip toes and walk around as long as possible. Your balance issues are just your nervous system failing to co-ordinate properly with your new weighted body.

2) You don't have to push yourself to your limit to be able to progress. Just don't expect to get the changes everybody else gets in the same amount of time.

3) What's wrong with yoga?

4) I haven't read it (I'm going to very soon), but that's the consensus.

You don't have to exhaust yourself to get in shape. Usually you aren't doing it right if you exhaust yourself but you don't have any DOMS. If you really are worried about getting yourself killed on the job because you worked out too hard, be wary that bodyweight exercises can be just as taxing as resistance training with free weights. Also, what do you mean by starting with body weight training and getting into the advanced stuff? Everything has basics, intermediate, and advanced. There's tons of body-weight stuff you wouldn't be able to do without years of training. There's plenty of free weight and resistance band and crossfit and TRX and etc. stuff that you can jump right into. Don't go with the notion that bodyweight training is easier, it is just more accessible. You can make anything hard or easy.

[bigkislowski]

125 lbs?! You go Alex! Keep up the good work and good luck quitting smoking

I'd suggest yoga for balance and flexibility. Even if you don't want to get into some of the full on poses, some basic stretches will do wonders for you.

[arcticMaiden]

I have to agree with bigkislowski, doing even a little yoga will make a big difference! (I've noticed it!) If you want a short routine to start try

If you can't get into the poses, don't force anything! It's all about learning how your body feels as you work into doing the poses your own way. Best of luck and congratulations on your successes so far!!!

[AlexH]

Yoga it is thanks for the quick replies!

Razor: I'm starting with the body weight stuff as it allows me to put of the what gym/program I plan to get into decision, I've no illusions that it's easy:)