Please recommend ankle & wrist weights.

the_devil_made_me_do_it

I don't just run on the treadmill, I do increase the incline. Same as the elliptical machine, I push up the resistance.

The medication I take causes weight gain unfortunately. Although I am lucky that my blood pressure is fine.

Regarding building muscles: I really don't want to build muscle at the moment. I would much rather concentrate on weight loss first.

My warm up consists of stretches & heart rate increasing exercise for 10 mins. I work at a high intensity that suits my current state of fitness. I do work up a sweat & get my heart rate pumping. I don't do more than half an hour HIIT. It works out at 40 mins including warm up.

I'm not ready to attend classes at the moment as I feel really body conscious. Fortunately hardly anyone uses the gym so I can sometimes be there by myself. There are no super fit people using this gym, so it doesn't make me feel as conscious.

I will look into resistance/strength training tho'. I just though that including ankle weights would increase the resistance in my cardio workout.

Fire_Fox

Stretches are not warming up, they should not be done before a workout unless you have postural distortions. Stretching weakens the muscle temporarily, the last thing you want most muscles to do if you are doing true high intensity work. Warming up is very light cardio for five to ten minutes (ten for HIIT) so that you are breathing heavier, could easily still hold a conversation but are warmer and perhaps lightly sweating.

Assuming you are female, you will not build any significant muscle with normal workouts that is a urban myth. Muscle building needs the male hormone testosterone (ladies have 10%) AND growth hormone AND an anabolic (weight/ muscle gain) diet AND a specific type of workout routine. What women call toning is muscle building for ladies, it leaves everything feeling tighter and increases the metabolism. Research proves this is valuable from day one, far more effective than cardio alone for weight management.

If you only do cardio you will lose muscle, you will get softer and your metabolism will drop. Please do not try to teach yourself resistance or strength training or make up your own routine, it is not safe. In January classes will be packed with overweight ladies who are self conscious. In November and December they are populated with the few who are serious about fitness or weight loss - of all shapes and sizes. If you attend an intense class people will not be looking at you they will be focussed on the discomfort/ pain!

If you are running and have a smartphone, maybe download a progressive running programme with hills as well as speed. There is a balance to be had between resistance and speed, if you get the resistance too high you will have burning muscles before you get to your limit of fitness. I don't have most clients do more than ten minutes on one machine, those who are doing high intensity (not everyone) are gasping for air and have jelly legs, they could not do another five minutes. If you are not intermittently gasping for air and jelly or painful legs you are not doing proper HIIT, I suspect your two minutes recovery is far too long.

At three months you should have had a massive increase in fitness, don't underestimate yourself and be proud you have stuck to it this long. The majority of ladies I see really underestimate their abilities, I've argued many a time about a woman DOUBLING her lifting weight or the intensity of her cardio workout, and I am almost always right! I hope you have been fitted for running shoes after a gait analysis at a proper sports/ running store.