Hi, Susie again! Thanks for the information.
First of all, MAJOR-LEAGUE HUGS re your DH serving in Iraq. My 25-year-old brother is also Over There, and I believe he too is due back in the States in April or May. People like you, the spouses of those in the military, deserve our support as much as the service people themselves.
Next of all, it makes perfect sense that you want to be fitter, as opposed to just "thinner". In fact, I'm a tad biases against the goal of thinness to the exclusion of leanness, which implies a fair amount of healthy, functional muscle mass.
I also need to tell you that I'm an anti-scale-weight person. Because the scale (including those tricked up jobbies that pretend to tell you your body composition) does not tell you how much of your weight is water, lean tissue, fat mass, skeletal matter, body organs, and even skin and brain, its information is . . . well, meaningless. I would suggest letting go of this mythical "20 pounds" that you feel you need to lose, and focusing on how your clothes fit. You can get leaner and smaller, paradoxically, and gain "weight" at the same time. Weird but true. Don't worry about scale weight.
In all candor, I think any warning away from doing step aerobics, lunges and squats based on one's body type is pure bunk. Keep in mind there are a lot of dot-com fitness charlatans on the Web, and the anti-step contingent is particularly irritating. Step aerobics can take many forms, and is a great calorie-burner and heart- as well as leg-and-glute trainer. I'm 5'3" with a skeletal frame like R2D2, and step has never made me "bulk out" in the glute and thigh area. Same with lunges and squats, two cornerstones of multi-joint leg strengthening.
Regarding low-weight-high-rep training, that has its place in a person's training program, but you can achieve even better results by bringing in high-weight-low-rep training to complement it. Keep in mind too that total-body strength training has health value in and of itself (increased muscle mass; increased bone density {of particular benefit to women, who are at greater risk of osteoporosis in later years}; increased functional ability). I suggest that if you build a mix of higher-weight-low-rep training and lower-weight-higher-rep training, you will see awesome results, physiologically AND aesthetically.
One final thing (thank God): my experience has been that when I couple just teeny-weeny healthy changes in my eating habits with a good, kick-butt exercise program that has a long-term goal of increasing intensity (in all areas, cardio as well as strength), my habit of eating for reasons other than nutritional need goes way down. When you give your body what it needs for exercise, your body will start to tell you what IT needs and wants, and emotional eating episodes become far less frequent and pronouned.
Pacem - look forward to seeing you on the Open Discussion Forum. Plan on about a thousand suggestions for which Cathe DVDs to buy. They are so worth the dough it's not even funny.
a-jock
