First of all I am 40 and morbidly obese. I am currently dropping massive amounts of weight with good diet and weight lifting.
Going up a hill gasses me out so fat that I have to stop to catch up. I got the losing weight part down. What else can I do to get better at cardio?
Rowing machine? Treadmill? HIIT?

If you're that heavy, I would just keep doing what you are.  Keep losing weight and gassing out walking the hill.  A bike might be less impact on your joints.  Don't go balls out yet and have a coronary.

strap on some inline skates and do that for 90 minutes at least 5 days a week
you'll have the second best cardio in all of gd after 6 mos.

I recommend interval training on a treadmill that has an incline feature. I've lost 175 pounds overall and I lost the first hundred using nothing but a treadmill and dumbbells.

Cardio is something that you can accomplish a million different ways.

Find something you LIKE doing, and stick with that. Biking, rowing, etc. everybody likes (or at least dislikes less) different things.

Whatever you choose, do a few different things.  High impact one day, low the next.

Watch pushing it too fast. I had a patient start spin class and end up in the hospital after her first class with rhabdomyolysis.

1. Fantastic.  You're on the road to better health and making progress.  That has to feel good.

2. This "morbidly obese" thing.  I'm not a doctor, but cardio tests things.  Tell your doctor what you're up to, and maybe there's some kind of stress test or regular BP monitoring they might recommend.  Basically, do not blow a gasket in your zeal.

3. Since you're overweight, low-impact cardio might be the way to go, for now; save your ankles, knees, joints.  I'm currently rowing as low-impact cardio I can do rain or shine.  Walking/hiking is a lot more interesting.  Bicycling isn't bad either.

Just keep moving.  The more weight you shed the easier it will get.   Hiking is phenominally good cardio

Just good old fashioned walking is great for you. As you get better at it you can up the pace or the distance or both.

Don't rush into running either, walking is relatively low impact and still offers many of the same benefits.

Overweight people really shouldn't be doing something with the potential to snap bones during a wipeout. Hell, people over 40 that aren't overweight should use caution too.

What’s your height/weight and body composition?  That will dictate where you should start be it walking, running, or something else.  

Medically I’m “obese” nearly morbidly, at 5’10 225 but wear 34 inch pants with a G43 IWB.  Morbidly obese doesn’t mean anything other than numbers these days.

I just want to say congrats, keep at it, and there is a ton of good advice above.

Don't injure yourself or get burned out and discouraged.

Make reasonable goals that you can actually hit. Keep your expectations high. Like 10 push-ups without stopping. Then 12 push-ups. Then 12 in a minute. Etc etc.

It makes a huge difference mentally when you achieve those goals and try for the next one.

Swimming will do wonders, and it won't kill your joints

Good for you. What are your goals for cardio, and what activities do you enjoy?
You should probably let the diet and lifting do most of the work, at least until you are to a weight with lower risk of injury for high impact activities. If you tear an ACL or something, you could be not only set back severely, but possibly your resolve broken as well. Walking decent distances is a great place to start.

I enjoy or used to before I blew up cross country skiing, fencing.
I want to be light and healthy enough for skiing and trail running.

Have access to a truck?  If so, find a local lumber yard wood mill where you can get free scrap wood.

Load it up yourself, take it home and unload it yourself.

Buy a splitting axe or maul and get yourself hours of satisfying cardio while lowering stress and stacking up wood.

I’m in my 50s.

I got one of these for peace of mind, while pushing myself hard.

https://fourthfrontier.com/products/frontier-x?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAB31DWVhdoalH4hMS-t8UmsU-3LT5&gclid=Cj0KCQjwztOwBhD7ARIsAPDKnkCiIxwnjzM3JSzdJ-HmMb2rBuknZ3zL2fBwrIva0S3BZ25kw1sK3WkaAsLDEALw_wcB

There are cheaper heart rate monitors available, but I like that this one can record a 24hr ECG.

$100 off right now.

I also have the Garmin Tactix 7 Pro Ballistics. Between the 2, they do a good job of tracking my cardio and progress for running and biking.

First, GOOD FOR YOU!!!!  If you're currently losing weight with what you're doing, keep that up.  Just losing weight will make the cardio easier.

Then, to add in cardio, here's the trick of cardio... find something you LIKE.  Maybe that's walking, maybe it's a stationary bike, maybe it's a real bike, maybe it's an "arm bike", maybe it's a treadmill, maybe it's a stair climber.... you get the idea.

I like skiing cross country which is quite limiting for me right now due to my extreme weight. Im gonna do rowing because that feels good, I used to do cycling when I was a kid but as an adult it just makes my butt and other parts hurt.
I hope I will lose enough weight to get back into skiing by winter.
Heart rate monitors? It looks like Garmin is pretty well integrated? Heart rate monitor, scale, blood pressure cuff, "fitbit", smart watches.
Also I could just take one of my dogs to a local park, he is a god damn crack fiend so keeping up with him and keeping him in check is a workout.

rowing machine and swimming were very beneficial to me when I dropped from 350+ to 250 over the past two years.  Starting out, I couldn't even walk more than a mile without my knees swelling up like balloons. I've switched to running hiking and biking now as my primary sources of cardio.  Was 228 this morning so I'm still a way off from my ultimate goal of sub-200 (199.8 on that scale will work for me ) but I'll get there

And YES, swimming in a public place is embarrassing at a larger size, if you're self-conscious at all.  I was.  But I was there for a purpose, and no one ever said anything disparaging to me.  Things certainly may have been said out of earshot, but fuck 'em

all this, well done OP.  I agree with the ease-in thing.  If you blow out a knee or ankle, then you're moving backwards.

Rowing, elliptical, bike, hiking, etc.  HIIT is good for you but again, need to temper how hard you go.

Do you want endurance or do you want short periods of max power?

Endurance

For endurance I would prescribe:

Continue weight loss

Focus on time for now. Set a goal to reach an hour of day cycling (can change this as this is an example).  Calculate your HRmax and target 45-50% of it for now. Eventually you will want to attempt 60-80%. If you cannot get there don’t sweat it. For now you want to focus on time and eventually work your way into focusing on distance. As you go through the motor learning and motor adaptation (GAS) phases, you will notice less effort required. However as time goes on more effort will be required to get your heart rate up as you adapt!  

Without knowing you and knowing your whole background I feel comfortable saying hell yeah brother keep at it. For endurance you want to focus on aerobic capacity rather than anaerobic. You’ll observe lactate threshold getting higher as well, which is a great thing. Lactic acid build up and your bodies ability to get rid of (buffer) CO2 is a great indicator of both aerobic and anaerobic progress.


The one hour is just an example. Adjust to what you can do and go from there. If you can’t make it 20 minutes but can make it ten, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But you might be surprised what your body is capable of.


If you are morbidly obese but do not have a history of heart disease or are a smoker then medical clearance is not necessary at this time. They just updated it and I’m still learning the new flow chart, lol. I’ll reference it and post it here.

Can someone suggest a tool for tracking my heartrate for progress and safety?

Aside from a chest strap I have found Apple Watches and garmin watches to be the most accurate watches.

Watch Dr. Sean O'Mara on Youtube.

lol.

2 of the features on my Garmin Tactix 7 Pro that I really appreciate (and there are a lot more):
1) unlike some smartwatches, it doesn’t need daily charging
2) by wearing it while sleeping, it tracks how well I sleep (using metrics like heart rate and the 3-axis  accelerometers to measure movement etc.), AND it tracks resting HRV (Heart Rate Variability).

HRV is dependent on the individual. Things like age AND fitness levels affect your own HRV.

In a nutshell, your heart doesn’t beat in a completely metronome-steady rhythm. At rest, there’s an inherent variability between heart rates (measured in milliseconds). Under physical exertion and demand to supply oxygen to the body, your heart rate speeds up, AND the variability decreases, as it pumps more steadily to supply oxygenated blood to the tissues.

Resting HRV, can both indicate fitness progression, when you see a gradual increase , OR overtraining/insufficient rest/recovery, if your resting HRV is lower than normal.

You have to wear the watch while asleep for 3-4 weeks to determine your personal baseline. Thereafter, you can use the last night’s HRV as an indicator of whether you’re pushing too hard/not allowing for proper recovery.

***
In my case, it also potentially saved my life.

Datapoint:
In my 50s. Never smoked. Never done recreational drugs. Quit alcohol completely 6 months after turning 21. Been working out regularly since my teens, and tracking my bodyfat percentage since then. Highest ever bodyfat percentage was 18.9%. I usually average between 10% and 15% depending on training cycle. No diabetes, or prior heart related issues.

The watch’s HRV showed me that I’m one of those people in whom COVID infection induces heart related problems.

Unvaccinated, and Covid put me in the hospital in 2021 with double pneumonia. Troponin levels indicated no myocarditis during that infection.

In 2022, my overnight HRV started to spike. Didn’t feel any symptoms, so of course, my thought was, “Huh… maybe this shit isn’t very accurate”.

Did my usual workout and noticed that my heart rate was spiking higher than normal, and I could feel my heart pounding a lot harder than normal. My heart rate that usually averaged mid-130s BPM with that particular workout, was spiking over 160 BPM, which I corroborated with my Masimo MightySat Rx pulse oximeter (which I’ve previously confirmed matches the Masimo Rainbow SET).

Decided to take it easy, instead of my usual, “Quit being a pussy, and tough it out”. As my HRV continued to spike (to about double my normal), I finally began feeling symptoms 2 days later. Symptoms remained mild enough, that without the HRV and that feeling that my heart was going to pound through my chest while working out, I might not have known I had anything. Test confirmed Covid positive.

Every time I tried to workout like normal, my heart would pound, and I could tell my body wasn’t up to it. Troponin levels indicated myocarditis, so I took it easy. It took a MONTH, for my HRV to finally drop back to my baseline, and I could finally begin to slowly push my workouts again.

Since then, I had an identical HRV spike last year. Out of curiosity, I got tested again. Yep, Covid positive. Mild symptoms, barely resembling a mild cold or sinus issues, but again, trying to work out like normal, produced an HR that spiked way above normal. Again, it took 4-5 weeks before returning to my baseline.

Pushing hard with myocarditis, kills young athletes. At my age, yeah…

*** if Covid continues to circulate, and it continues affecting me this way, it seems likely that it’s going to kill me at some point, when my body (and immune system) is older and weaker, and my heart can no longer handle it.

I love mine. Maybe a little expensive though to start out. The Instinct 2 solar is also pretty great (not in the same league, but mine worked flawlessly before I upgraded) for 1/4 the price.

I have an Instinct 2 non-solar. Same features. If not running GPS the battery life is 27days on a full charge.

$220 on Amazon.

Did my arms and my chest at the gym yesterday and did 1200 meters in 10 minutes on a rowing machine.
Will get a heartbeat monitor soon to stay in the optimal zone for that.

The "best" is whatever you'll do.  A treadmill, bike, rowing machine, etc., etc., etc. that you hate and therefore sits in the corner collecting dust is 100% useless.  Just find something that gets you moving and that you enjoy.  There's the "best".

Another day another gym visit. Yesterday was leg and and I did 1250 meters in 10 minutes so 50 meter progress on the rowing machine. And according to my calculations I lost 2.7 pounds in the last 7 days. Under1% of my body mass so not too fast or severe of weight loss.

From what I understood from a people who have a PhD in this stuff you want to keep it around 1% or lower per week to reduce excessive loss of muscle mass.

Good job man.

I won't comment on %s, but ~2ish lbs per week is a good goal for most people. That said, personally I would check with my doctor to see about being more aggressive for a while until you start to plateau.

Life/Health update. I have been eating clean for almost a month now and going to gym 5 days a week with consistent weight loss.
Screw weight and size, the quality of my has improved. I have psoriatic arthritis and as you already know type 2 diabetus.
I was able to lean down and tie my wifes shoes without groaning or yelling from pain.
I am having GREAT sleep, I mean great! I got up early on mondays with no problems happy and ready to go. I took my dogs for a walk and had energy to do laundry and cleaning.
I am at 309 pounds, so I lost 4.3 pounds last 7 days. Yeah I know it will taper down as I lose weight from the extreme top end.

Did rowing machine again, this time 1340 meters in 10. Progress.

Keep up the good work.  Tons of info here.


https://www.youtube.com/@KenDBerryMD/videos

308 pounds. Suck it diabetes.

keep it up OP


Don't underestimate the power of simple walking, setting a step goal every day PLUS your regular cardio and workouts can be a very powerful thing.....take the dog for a walk and take an extra lap, park at the other end of the lot when you have to go to the store, take the stairs instead of an elevator, have a routine of going for a 30 minute walk after dinner with your SO every day etc.


Lot's of little changes make a huge difference.

 First of all good for you.  I have nothing but respect for people who say "I don't wanna look like this anymore or be like this anymore"  and then ACTUALLY do something about it.   Instead of people who just blather.   I just turned 51 a few days ago.  Yesterday in the gym I squatted 500 to the ground and back up with just a belt.  No knee wraps.   Yes at 51.   I'm not telling you this to toot my own horn.  Its about the knees.   As you have said you are very heavy.  You have no idea how much pressure it puts on your knees.  I'm 6'1, 270.  And that is a lot of pressure on my knees all the time.   I do not do ANY other real physical activity that can effect my knees.  So for cardio for me its the Elliptical.  I do that specifically to protect my knees.   It is basically no impact on your knees.  I recommend that.  If not the seated bike is also good.   I would stay away from the treadmill unless its to do your cooldown on.  I normally walk at 2 mph for a few minutes to cool down.

Protect those knees.  And that bodyweight puts a real stress on them.   I've been in this game for years.   Lots and lots of heavy weights.   Left shoulder surgery, right elbow/tricep surgery.  And now my right rotator cuff is messed up.  So surgery on that later this year.  Its a price you pay for looking like I do and throwing heavy shit around for years and years and years.    Worth it to me because I see what the average 40 yr old man looks like.  Much less the average guy in his 50's.  

Just remember this.   Right now things are great.  Weight is coming off and you are making quick progress.   But that will slow down.  That's when it will get harder because "gains" come slower.   That's when you find out how disciplined you are.   Stick with it.   You will never regret it.  The psychological benefits from exercise alone are worth it.    It has to be your "way of life".  Not a hobby or fad.   Keep us informed how things are going.  I love seeing people better themselves.  Its great.

OP, threads like this are so damn inspiring. This really makes my day. I’m not in the shape I’d like to be in at the moment but have managed to keep my weight in check. When I’m out for a run and see other people running or biking, it’s not the marathoners putting in their weekly 40 that’s motivating, it’s seeing guys and gals who have a real uphill climb ahead of them but are putting in the difficult work to F***ING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I don’t have any great suggestions other than this: excuses come fast and easy. Everything is a choice. Hard choices pay dividends. They will make you more resilient. Sometimes the choice is working out when you don’t want to. Sometimes the choice is taking it down a notch so you don’t injure yourself and sideline your progress. 100 times a day you’ll come to a fork in the road. The more often you make the small choice that you know will be better for you, the more you’ll turn the odds in your favor.

LET’S. F***ING. GOOOOOOO!!!

305 pounds
Things have been hard. I got the news from vet that my 4 legged best friend will join his sister (she passed from cancer too couple of months ago) in a couple of days.
I have been meal prepping for the week and hand feeding my boy his favorites while he can still keep food down.




Chicken and sugar free BBQ pork belly for my boy.

I'm cheering for you OP.

I went from 285lbs, 46" waist, to 183 lbs, 32" waist. It took years.  I'm right at 10% BF now.  I lift every day.

Pretty good advice in this thread.  Low impact is key when you're heavy.  

Walking, recumbent biking or stationary, rowing machine are excellent.  The rowing machine is always good.

Keep lifting weights.  While you drop fat, you can add muscle.  I did a lot of supersets to keep my heartrate up.

Rucking would work to increase your  walking heart rate. You can scale into it as you improve.

I row due to foot trouble; but walking would be my next option.

A Concept II rower with a  heart monitor is how I do cardio.  
I do intervals one day and a steady aerobic workout the next.

Im hurting folks. Looks like I will do a CT scan on fri or sat. Looks like hernia, possibly inguinal hernia. It hurts, even radiates in my left testicle. I am concentrating on diet and reducing injury right now. So CT scan and surgical consult I guess.
Shitter is leaking and I cant fix it because of hernia and I am saying goodbye to my 4 legged best friend. This week sucks.

Over 40.

Overweight too.

Stick to the 10% rule.  Whatever it is you are doing now (probably walking up that hill), keep doing it.  But don't add any more than 10% the subsequent week(s).  If that hill is a 1/4mi long, then do that same hill next week 10% faster.  Or do that same hill the same speed, but add 10% distance at the top of it.  If you start jumping into huge new cardio ventures you're likely to injure yourself.

In 2020 I ran 1mi in 12min and that was as fast and far as I could go.  

3/3/2023 I ran a 43min 5k, puking, huffing, puffing, dying.

Last week I ran a 25min 5k.  Walked inside and joined a conference call.

Today I ran 10mi in 90min...composed (knees sore though!).

Run... until you can't. And then walk... until you can run again.

Rinse & repeat.