Another noob needing advise

[Vintara]

I am a 53 year old female 5' 6" tall. I started my weight loss journey November 2013. My beginning weight was 247 I am now down to 180. I am a vegetarian and had fallen into eating to many carbs! I now have that under control by eating clean and giving up processed as much as I can. I am on my 12th day of rowing, I have mostly been rowing 5000 meters trying to get the proper technique down. I am wondering about foot position, I had it set at 3 but changed it to a 2 today. I want to know the best position for a female of my height. Today I rowed 5000 meters in 26:05.8. 2:37.4 split. 5.14 split time. 25 s/m. 0.91 drive length, 13.31 drive speed, 104 drag factor 90 watt.. I am very new to this and would like to lose another 35 pounds. Do these numbers look good? I don't go to the gym so rowing is my main form of exercise replacing a Gazelle. I appreciate all advise given, I feel I am competitive and right now all the women above me in the ranking are fueling me!

[jamesg]

I'd say you're doing very well, so keep going as is - longish steady work with HR not too high.

Keeping feet low helps to get to a strong catch position, which makes it all too easy to do a lot of work, at least as far as posture is concerned.

[Vintara]

Thank you! I did get the pm4 with the heart monitor I have used it a couple times. My heart rate was 158-159 that looked scary to me so I figured it is best to not see that until I fugure out what it should be. I guess if I use the heart monitor and croak that was to high of a heart rate

[jamesg]

http://therowingcompany.com/weightloss/interactive

Lots of programs here, and they show how you can manage HR to stay in the aerobic bands and out of trouble, hopefully. You'll need to know your resting and max heart rates; max can be guessed from your age if you don't want to do a max test; but if you saw 159 maybe you already have it.

[Vintara]

Thanks I will look at that I need to figure that out I know it is very important.

[DuffyF56]

I would not be too concerned about the HR as you listed. I am a 58 year old smoker and just completed a Personal Best 5000 meter row with a HR at or above 160 beats per minute for the final 10 minutes of a 21 minute piece. Maximum HR is related to conditioning and age. I have been rowing since last October (2013).

[Citroen]

Stop using 220-age it is complete nonsense. They only way to find maxHR is by measuring it. The best way to measure it is as part of a lactate threshold study.