LA Fitness

This past January, LA Fitness opened in Fairwood.  I was so excited for it to open because it was my first shot and becoming healthy again in a long time!  When I was in high school I never even had to try to look in shape.  I guess I've got good genes, but everyone in my family had pretty amazing bodies when we were young.  My girl cousins were all tiny (actually, they still are) and my boy cousins had huge muscles and v-shaped torsos without lifting a single weight.  I was clueless as to what made a good workout or how people lost weight - I never needed it before recently.
The last ten years have been a series of ups and downs based on my lifestyle and stress level, but I still never did anything about my weight or fitness because it always ended up in about the same spot.  Up until a couple months into my teaching career I was never concerned about my weight...I always figured I'd lose what I put on and that it was just a phase.  However, I expected this last "phase" to end at the end of last school year.  If any of you decide to become teachers, understand that your first year of teaching is hell.  I have never done anything so time consuming, stressful, and tiring.  Sometimes I don't understand how I got through it!  All of the stress added up to a few extra pounds and I expected them to fall off during the summer when the stress went away.  Here we are, half way through my second year of teaching, and they're still here.  When I learned they weren't going away as easily as they had in the past, I realized quickly that I needed to do something about it, so I joined the gym.
So...that brings us up to date...I've been working out for two months now and I haven't lost a pound.  It's been the most frustrating process.  I did, however, just go in for my fitness assessment and was very enlightened on the whole weight loss process.  I've been going about it all wrong!  I've been pushing the cardio workouts because my understanding was that cardio increased your metabolism.  I was very wrong.  What I should have been doing this whole time was strength training.  What???  You mean I have to go use those machines???  Holy crap...but I have no clue how.
Yes, that's how I feel right now.  It's not that I'm not willing to use them, but I have to say my pride's trying to resist situations that will make me look like a complete fool and that's how I feel on those machines.  I just don't know what I'm doing.  Yeah, I guess I could get a personal trainer for a while and go from there, but that's just more money, and this whole fitness thing is expensive as it is!
I've been doing my research, though, and I've found a lot of websites that explain how to work out effectively.  First of all, you're supposed to push yourself.  You should only be doing 8-12 reps per set (I'm not sure if I'm using the vocab right) and you should be lifting an amount that makes you lose your form by the eighth repetition.  Apparently this is more effective than doing more repetitions at a lower weight. I've been working out this way the past two times I've gone to the gym and I can already feel a difference.  I'm not saying I've lost weight already, but I can feel a difference in my muscles - mostly angry muscles that are sore from me pushing them further than they're used to, but they're just whiny babies right now.  They'll get used to it :). 
Anyway, this is probably not an interesting post for most of you, but one last bit before I close up: I see a lot of my students at LA Fitness.  Yes, it's a bit weird, but I'm getting used to it.  If I ever see you there and I'm on the machines, feel free to show me how to use them or to give your own input.  I'm new at this and need all the help I can get!