Bryan and I started our weight loss competition on February 1 of this year. Lyle joined us in mid-April. So far, Bryan is down 50 pounds, I am down 23, and Lyle is down an (adjusted for his late start) 22. I have been about as faithful as possible about doing my exercise and, after four months of only cardiovascular exercise, I have transitioned over to doing more exercise. A long time ago I read something that Kenneth Cooper said about lifting weights. He has done a lot of research on exercise and its impact on aging. He found that it is very important for people over the age of 50 to lift weights to avoid dramatic loss of muscle mass. There is a pretty good write-up on the subject here. In the past, I was always able to start up a weight program fairly quickly, but I am taking it very slowly this time. After a couple of days (Day 1: chest, Day 2: legs), I am pretty sore, but not so much that I am going to have to lay off for a couple of weeks or anything like that. I was thinking I was going to get up at 5:00 AM every morning to go in to the YMCA and lift, but based on both schedule and frame of mind, that is not going to happen. I have decided to just try to get up one day at 5:00 AM to go in and do squats (and legs) on Tuesdays and do dead-lifts (and back) on Saturdays, but do the rest of my workouts in the gym at lunch during the week.
