body gives up but brain wants to keep going

[Ombrax]

In my humble opinion, the sliding of your erg is a technique issue that is worth working on and correcting. You're leaving too much energy at the end of your drive which is causing you to pull back on the foot straps and to inch the erg backwards. Every time you do this it wastes energy that would be more efficiently applied to spinning the wheel. Some row strapless, it might help you here.

+1 on this.

Unless you're rowing super-hard you should be able to row strapless and not have any problems keeping your feet in place. If you can't do that there's an issue with your technique. Try it and if you can't that's a red flag that as LC says, should be addressed. You absolutely don't want to be yanking on the straps at the end of every stroke - it's a total waste.

Good Luck

[ukaserex]

I haven't seen any new responses by the OP.

Should 6footminnow return, just wanted to leave this response:

You must continue on this journey. Recognize that Doctors are great for treating sickness - but unless they are into fitness themselves, they really aren't equipped to advise you on nutrition or much else; that's not what they handle in medical school. You are pretty much on your own.

Rome was not built in one day. Nor can you get where you want to be in a short time, either. But you can (and are) taking steps towards your goal of being more fit than you are now.

I would suggest you first try to identify your basic metabolic rate - the amount of energy you spend when you do nothing but lounge around the house. There are a number of sites online that can give you a good guess. Depending on your rate of exertion, weight/height - (can't trust the C2 calorie tracker - it seems to be designed for 165# men) - your calorie burn in a session is going to vary. If you can get your hands on a Fitbit, or a some other fitness tracker, you'll then have some type of guess as to how many calories you're burning in a session. Add that to your basic metabolic rate, and then you'll know how much you can eat without gaining weight. Subtract 500 to 1000 calories from that, and you'll know how much you can eat to lose weight.

For best results, you'll want to be sure you consume plenty of protein to help maintain your muscle mass. Fats are fine, with proteins. Carbs are fine, with proteins. Try not to mix carbs and fats. You certainly can - you won't die - but for weight management purposes, I wouldn't advise it. That said, we're all different, so it could be that what is healthy for one of us might be unhealthy for you. You'll have to use your best judgment. If you keep a food diary - log what you eat, when you eat it, how much, etc - then you can see at day's end how you've done. That is the only thing that ever worked for me - logging what I ate. If not, I suffered from calorie amnesia and forgot certain snacks here and there through the day.

I know money is tight, but you may benefit from a group fitness class to help encourage you. Exercising alone is convenient, certainly cheaper - but it can be a lot tougher to suffer through a hard workout without others struggling along side you.

Keep at it. The only failure is when you put the handle down for good.

[iain]

Just in case you are still monitoring your thread, have a few comments.

Firstly, congratulations on a great start. Sounds as iff you are becoming hooked. Just listen to the advice that you should only be pushing on a couple of sessions a week maximum. The progress will be improved by the easy sessions that will burn plenty of calories and help you get fitter, they aren't wasted even if they feel too easy. No pain no gain was shown to be wrong in 80s.

If you like pushing yourself, you might wish to join a virtual team. Doing the Cross Team Challenge and various other challenges is a great way to mix it up. my own club is fully inclusive and has 80 year olds logging times for the challenges so you won't feel embarassed with your times.

If you adopt the "try and maintain average from previous session for all but last interval then go quicker" commonly known as the Pete Plan approach, you need a range of sessions. i would recommend this only for the faster 1-2 sessions per week with enough alternative fast workouts for at least 3 weeks. that way you should have moved on between the same sessions and should be able to maintain improvements for 10 or so cycles (maybe more). If you try and do this each week you will quickly reach your limit. We all vary in what we can do day to day and it is very demotivating to have an unachievable target for that day even if we make it on our next good day!

Firstly, if you want to try rowing strapless start very easy. It is way too easy to topple over backwards and injure yourself. Even when you have it working one bad stroke can have you going over! What i would say is that you should be aiming to slow the slide forward for the next stroke. many new rowers rush up the slide and the numbers on cheap rowing machines give you extra credit for this. What matters is the power of the drive, the rest is mere recovery. Try and aim for the recovery taking around twice the time of the stroke for normal training.

Finally Drag factor. Glad you haven't gone for putting it up to 10. i would say that it is very unusual for any but children, the old or very small to use a Drag of 90. I would suggest that you slowly increase it (by moving up the handle on the side) and see how it feels. This wioll allow you to get your power down with a slower movement. 120 - 130 is typical for a heavy weight man. This should also slow your stroke a bit at the same power that may allow you to generate a higher pace as you will be wasting less energy on the recovery. That said, you may find that it takes a bit of time to adapt as your legs will probably tire more quickly, so accept a slight drop in pace or reduce the distance while you are getting used to it.

Best of luck.

Iain