My new year’s resolution was to replace sugary drinks with water – which I’ve done. I’ve also started improving my diet, exercising, and am getting ready to start meditating. (Yes, I should have started all those things years ago. This is the year I actually /am/ starting.)

My goals: “Live forever or die trying.” More specifically: Improving my heart health is the way I can improve my life-expectancy by the greatest amount. I wouldn’t object to losing around 40 pounds, but I’m not specifically aiming for that yet; possibly by two years from now or so. I enjoy hiking and camping, and wouldn’t object to increasing my endurance for the same.

My current exercise routine: A couple of days after New Year’s, I decided to start with one each of jumping-jacks, toe-touches, squats, push-ups, and sit-ups; to add one of each each day; and to see if I was physically capable of reaching 30. (I /definitely/ wasn’t able to do 30 of each when I started.) Today’s magic number was 26, and I seem on track to reach my first goal; I’m now looking for improvements to the routine beyond ‘aim for 60’. (I have essentially zero budget for equipment, so I expect I’ll keep focused on bodyweight exercises, until spring arrives and I can start bicycling.)

I have essentially no relevant knowledge or experience, and my first plan was based on vague memories of Scouts and high school gym classes.

I’m male, 37, 5’4″, currently near 200 lbs. (I don’t currently have a functioning scale.)

Thank you for your time,
—
DataPacRat
“Then again, maybe I’m wrong.”

I’m immortal until proven otherwise too, it’s a good system.

There are a massive variety of bodyweight exercises available and a whole section here on that type of workout.
The priorities to set on this are the same as any form of resistant work, variation and balance. You are doing what a lot of people, self included, do at the start by working in a very linear repetitive manner. Doing the same exercises for years makes you good at these exact movements and becomes less effective with more time. Ideally you want to do a set of movements for a few months then switch either the exercises or the style of program, this could mean still doing the same exercises, but slowing the movement down, speeding it up, splitting the reps into sets of 10 and doing them in circuit etc. rather than simply adding an extra rep at a time for years. However doing this for a few months is perfectly valid and targeted training works well, you just need to shift the goalposts every few months. Balance is very key, yours doesn’t look too bad at quick glance, but as you get more advanced you want to be looking in detail to ensure the body is being worked evenly and totally, harder on body weight only work.
Baring in mind this is your new years resolution, keep what you are doing until the end of next month and use that time to read up on the body weight exercise forum and find stuff you are likely to enjoy.
A good addition is always going to be walking, and this doesn’t need to be drastic hikes up Kilimanjaro it can just be a stroll at lunch time, cold weather just means wrap up well. This gets the heart rate elevated a small amount over a duration which is a good starting point. There are more intense and effective ways to improve heart health in a hurry, but this is pretty much unbeatable in the earliest days, and the idea is to improve life so taking time should be fine. When the walk feels to easy or boring, tell us and we’ll give you some additional stuff, not jogging for a while, unless you really want it, high impact work could be an issue in the early days for someone your size who isn’t used to it. This is why the only alarm bell on your stuff was jumping jacks, but this shows you have avoided the joint issues that can accompany inactivity and high body weight, well done.
Start small build up, you have forever to get what you want.

Diet wise, balance again. Look at a few food pyramids for proportion only, not portion numbers. No-one lives by one of these perfectly but it’s worth getting close. If you want to drop a bit of weight over time, which is the only sustainable way, cut back rather than out. This means removing a very small amount of all of your food once you have a good balance, not cutting out something that throws off your balance leaving you hungry. Obviously cutting out to give balance like with the sugary drinks is great, water good!
As much as possible keep things simple with diet, the more complex the more margin for error and less likelihood of keeping to it.

No working scales, best news in there. Not watching body weight means you can use more effective measures, like ability, clothing fit and of course the mirror to judge if you are changing in the way you want.

Originally Posted by CrazyOldMan

I’m immortal until proven otherwise too, it’s a good system.

Well, there’s trying to live forever, and then there’s trying to live forever. <ahem>

There are a massive variety of bodyweight exercises available and a whole section here on that type of workout.

Do you mean something like this list?

The priorities to set on this are the same as any form of resistant work, variation and balance. You are doing what a lot of people, self included, do at the start by working in a very linear repetitive manner. Doing the same exercises for years makes you good at these exact movements and becomes less effective with more time. Ideally you want to do a set of movements for a few months then switch either the exercises or the style of program, this could mean still doing the same exercises, but slowing the movement down, speeding it up, splitting the reps into sets of 10 and doing them in circuit etc. rather than simply adding an extra rep at a time for years. However doing this for a few months is perfectly valid and targeted training works well, you just need to shift the goalposts every few months. Balance is very key, yours doesn’t look too bad at quick glance, but as you get more advanced you want to be looking in detail to ensure the body is being worked evenly and totally, harder on body weight only work.
Baring in mind this is your new years resolution, keep what you are doing until the end of next month and use that time to read up on the body weight exercise forum and find stuff you are likely to enjoy.

I greatly appreciate these paragraphs – at this stage, even being told some relevant basics is very helpful.

A good addition is always going to be walking, and this doesn’t need to be drastic hikes up Kilimanjaro it can just be a stroll at lunch time, cold weather just means wrap up well. This gets the heart rate elevated a small amount over a duration which is a good starting point. There are more intense and effective ways to improve heart health in a hurry, but this is pretty much unbeatable in the earliest days, and the idea is to improve life so taking time should be fine. When the walk feels to easy or boring, tell us and we’ll give you some additional stuff, not jogging for a while, unless you really want it, high impact work could be an issue in the early days for someone your size who isn’t used to it.

If there’s one exercise I already do a lot of, it’s walking. When the weather’s not at -20 degrees (not including wind-chill), I’ve gone on 10+ mile jaunts at the drop of a hat and without any particular preparation. I have a pair of trekking poles to turn walking into arm exercise, and once I can wear shorts again, I’ve been thinking of finally putting on some ankle weights. (Or wrist weights.)

(Unfortunately, at the moment, my poles are more useful to avoid slipping on ice than as exercise gear…)

One of my extreme long-term goals is to do a through-hike of a local trail that’s about 550 miles long – a month of 20-mile days, with a full pack. I’m not even going to consider trying that until I’m no longer carrying anywhere near my current amount of penalty weight.

Any suggestions you could offer on improving my ability here are more than welcome.

This is why the only alarm bell on your stuff was jumping jacks, but this shows you have avoided the joint issues that can accompany inactivity and high body weight, well done.
Start small build up, you have forever to get what you want.

Well, not /quite/ forever, but certainly a good many years.

Diet wise, balance again. Look at a few food pyramids for proportion only, not portion numbers. No-one lives by one of these perfectly but it’s worth getting close. If you want to drop a bit of weight over time, which is the only sustainable way, cut back rather than out. This means removing a very small amount of all of your food once you have a good balance, not cutting out something that throws off your balance leaving you hungry. Obviously cutting out to give balance like with the sugary drinks is great, water good!
As much as possible keep things simple with diet, the more complex the more margin for error and less likelihood of keeping to it.

Fair enough.

No working scales, best news in there. Not watching body weight means you can use more effective measures, like ability, clothing fit and of course the mirror to judge if you are changing in the way you want.

… The fact that my clothing’s fit is going to change hadn’t occurred to me at all, until now. That’s going to be a bit disconcerting, after having had the same size for so many years.

Will have a look at the blog at some point. Mine is largely a training journal with a few rants and bits of random stupidity.

The body weight exercises link will be a good one. There is a section on this forum too dedicated to it Body Weight Training which will have discussions about it. As an old climber who got so used to playing with my body weight with ease I tend not to do much of it unless it’s a finisher at the end. That’s normal for naturally scrawny people like me, if you are used to being bigger body weight suddenly becomes more intense. You will find yourself progressing on two fronts if aiming for trimming down, increase in strength and decrease in load. When that happens come back and we will endeavour to remove some sanity.

At the start it is always best to work with simple guidelines and easy programs. It’s very easy to get overloaded with data and end up making a serious mess of things, get injured or just too confused to continue. I have read about fitness, performance and diet to insomnia curing levels, a number of years ago though, so have a lot of very in depth if sometimes out of date information available to me. Dumping that on anyone in one go would drive them instantly insane and convince them fitness is far too complex. You will make mistakes and the start is ironically the safest time to do so, the intensity will be so low you won’t cause lasting damage unless very stupid, the more advanced you get the higher the risk and more severe the damage is if you mess up. So stay safe now in order to ensure you stay safe always.

People looking to start a lifetime training regime have to put enjoyment at priority 1 and keep it there. Not everything will be enjoyable immediately so give it a chance but if you do it for a few months and hate it, ditch it and find something else. I started ballet to support climbing, found it unbearably hard at first but stuck to it. By the time I finished climbing I was so into ballet I kept going until the owner drank the school. Never assume what you will enjoy, try stuff and see how it goes.

I use snow trax for running on snow and ice. It’s great to watch as others struggle to walk and I run past. Yes I do find the misery of others funny on occasion.

Clothing fit will change and if you get to be seriously fit, finding clothes that do will be ‘interesting’ I find getting trousers that go around my legs and aren’t huge at my waist nigh on impossible.

Originally Posted by CrazyOldMan

At the start it is always best to work with simple guidelines and easy programs. It’s very easy to get overloaded with data and end up making a serious mess of things, get injured or just too confused to continue. I have read about fitness, performance and diet to insomnia curing levels, a number of years ago though, so have a lot of very in depth if sometimes out of date information available to me. Dumping that on anyone in one go would drive them instantly insane and convince them fitness is far too complex. You will make mistakes and the start is ironically the safest time to do so, the intensity will be so low you won’t cause lasting damage unless very stupid, the more advanced you get the higher the risk and more severe the damage is if you mess up. So stay safe now in order to ensure you stay safe always.

One exercise that’s caught my eye a couple of times is the burpee – though when I started a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage even one, so I didn’t include them. I’m now thinking that when I hit my first target of 30 days, I could start adding an additional burpee a day, until… I don’t know, another 30 days? Until adding more starts being too painful?

Does that sound like anything resembling a sane plan?

As long as you don’t add reps to the detriment of form it looks good.
There is impact due to the jump, if your body alignment isn’t right you will hurt your back, feel anything resembling that, stop for that day.

Originally Posted by CrazyOldMan

As long as you don’t add reps to the detriment of form it looks good.
There is impact due to the jump, if your body alignment isn’t right you will hurt your back, feel anything resembling that, stop for that day.

Speaking of impact… I have roughly two spots in my home where I can exercise – a particular spot on a tile floor (which will be too hot in summer), and in my basement with its unpainted concrete floor (which is too chilly in winter). I’d rather not damage either the tiles or myself, so I’m thinking of buying some sort of mat or pad. Maybe a cheap grass mat from the dollar store, maybe some space-age-material thing from the department store’s exercise aisle, maybe something else entirely. Given that I have a limited budget… any recommendations?

Conveyor belt rubber or industrial matting. There will likely be a junk/scrap yard with some of this.
Even old carpet or linoleum someone is removing from a house will do the job. Working to a tight budget is all about opportunism and often making opportunities using a bit of lateral thinking.

In case anyone’s interested – today’s magic number was 30, and I just completed the exercise set. Which means that I’ve accomplished my first self-improvement goal in, well, essentially ever.

Sure, 30 toe-touches/sit-ups/etc a day isn’t all that impressive compared to what a lot of people are capable of – but it’s 30 a day more than I was doing a month ago. And starting tomorrow, I have a new plan: burpees. Again, few to start off with, but more every day, until either something breaks, or I decide to do something more interesting.

Targets should always be personal, so you are doing well.