Planning to Get Fit

[malualltheway]

Hi,
I recently gained several pounds (roughly 15-20 pounds) over the last 2 months. I am a newly graduate student and have been planning to take 1-2 months off to get my body back into a fully fit state. I am currently 175 pounds (a lot of it is belly fat). I am not very obese and used to work out regularly 3-5 days a week, but I had to stop recently and it has caused me to gain weight rapidly. I want to primarily tone my body and lose the fat I had gained over the past month and have longer endurance. I am going to start my training on Wednesday. I am not sure exactly on my plan of action and hence why I am here XD.

I currently have a full set of dumb-bells, all the P90x workout videos, a home treadmill and a 24 hour fitness card. I do not have the finance for a personal trainer and am pretty proficient in all forms of exercises (including yoga).

Basically, my plan is to work my body non-stop for one month as if I were going to run a marathon (which I want to do eventually). I am afraid of straining my body and would like some tips on the best plan of action.

What do you all think I should do to get started?

Any help would be appreciated!
Thank you.

 

[Goldfish]

You could just do P90x, since you have the resources by the sounds of it. Personally, I don't know anything about the program other than that there's a lot of hype about it. If you're just looking for improved overall fitness without specialisation or specific focus on one particular area of fitness, and you like training 3-5 days per week, you might be interested in a cross-training program I wrote up today.

The short description of the program is:
- Sunday: Rest
- Monday: Strength
- Tuesday: Speed
- Wednesday: Rest or ROM
- Thursday: Strength
- Friday: Endurance
- Saturday: Rest or ROM

If that sounds like something you might be interested in, then you can read it in more detail here

Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter a great deal what you do (unless you have specific functional or athletic goals), so long as the program has some sensibility to it, all the large muscles are trained proportionately and efficiently, and you eat appropriately.

 

[Quadlas3r]

Are you saying that you just graduated or are you saying that you are just starting graduate school?

I would give very different advice depending on that answer.