I have been doing very well with my cardio routine of walking/jogging 2 miles 5 days a week. However I felt I needed more. My food intake ( I HATE saying diet) has been going very well, and I have had a lot of extra energy, but my weight loss started to plateau a little bit. Wanting to get a little more use out of the extra energy I decided to start lifting weights… AKA Strength training..
Now I do not know about you all but for me, I was and I still am highly intimidated by all those “Fancy Smancy” machines at the gym. I am afraid I will go there and make a fool out of my self. I have yet to actually sit down and try to use one…. However…. in place of those I have picked up dumbbells instead… I have read that most athletes prefer dumbbells to the “machines” as well. With dumbbells you can exercise specific parts of the body you want to focus on…
For me this was great I researched what kind of areas I wanted to work on, like Legs, Chests, Shoulders, Back, and finally arms ( I WANT GUNS 
), and found associated routines for those specific areas. This is a very handy site you can use to find specific Dumbbell exercises with nice little animations.
If this is something you are interested in the next thing you have to do is set a routine out. You do not want to keep working on the same thing(s) daily as it can become painful, and you will not let your body rest when it needs to recover. In my blog I sat down and worked out a routine that works for me and I have been using it for almost 2 weeks now. I have seen great results, in weight loss, and I have to admit my arms are firming up quite nicely 
Finally I wanted to touch on two things. First thing, is if you are motivated to start strength training start out easy. Yeah I know you can lift 30lbs weights but try 20 at first and work you way up to that over a course of a few days. You do not want to injure yourself. The other thing I wanted to touch on is that if you are Gym shy ( I still am ) you can pick up a pair of dumbbells(what ever weight you are comfortable with) at stores like wal-mart real cheap and do these exercises in your home.
Happy training!!!!!!!
