If you want to improve your cardiovascular health, do some cardio 3-7 times per week for at least 30 minutes.
If you have the will/want/time, add in some weight lifting 3-5 times a week.
Lastly, controlling your diet will make arguably the biggest difference in your body composition. If you want to lose weight you need to eat less calories than you burn period, unless you have medical conditions. If you have trouble losing weight you need to count your calories and figure out your TDEE using a calculator(google will pull up a few).
So personally I go to the gym directly after work(bring everything you need in the morning). This works the best for me because it doesn't allow me to get home and be lazy.
Personally I alternate between both.
"Given that ∼20% of subjects fail to improve aerobic capacity with intense endurance training, while ∼30% do not enhance their insulin sensitivity (12), it is clear that we must develop genotype-tailored lifestyle interventions."[1]
[1] Using molecular classification to predict gains in maximal aerobic capacity following endurance exercise training in humans
James A. Timmons, Steen Knudsen, Tuomo Rankinen, Lauren G. Koch, Mark Sarzynski, Thomas Jensen, Pernille Keller, Camilla Scheele, Niels B. J. Vollaard, Søren Nielsen, Thorbjörn Åkerström, Ormond A. MacDougald, Eva Jansson, Paul L. Greenhaff, Mark A. Tarnopolsky, Luc J. C. van Loon, Bente K. Pedersen, Carl Johan Sundberg, Claes Wahlestedt, Steven L. Britton, Claude Bouchard Journal of Applied Physiology Published 1 June 2010 Vol. 108 no. 6, 1487-1496 DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.01295.2009
I have a couple of reasons for this: 1) If your goal is to look good, then lifting will most definitely help with that. Basically, you'll gain more definition and muscle tone where it counts and lose a lot of the superfluous fat. 2) You'll also feel better. It's a pretty great feeling to pick up something that you know should be heavy and find that you can manage it with one hand. 3) The above talks about diet, specifically burning more calories on a daily basis than you consume. Lifting will help with this in two ways. Firstly, the act of lifting itself is extremely calorie-intensive: you burn pretty much the same (or greater) number of calories lifting than you do running (assuming fairly standard workouts, of course). Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, not only does it take a lot of energy to build new muscle during your recovery, muscle tissue takes more energy to keep warm than an equal amount of fat. What that means is that if you replace some of your body fat with muscle through a lifting routine, you will increase your basal metabolic rate (the amount of energy you burn at rest), which will be a godsend for any weight-loss plans you may have.
That being said, don't disregard cardio: work it in on recovery days.
Speaking of recovery days, if your muscles feel good enough to lift more than four days a week, you'll get better results increasing your workloads (higher weight) and keeping to 2-4 days a week. If you do chose to do 4 days a week, a great pattern is:
Day 1: Upper Body (High Weight + Low Reps) Day 2: Lower Body (Low Weight + High Reps) Day 3: Rest (Cardio if you feel up to it) Day 4: Lower Body (High Weight + Low Reps) Day 5: Upper Body (Low Weight + High Reps) Day 6: Rest Day 7: Rest
Low reps means 5-6, high means 10-15. Use whatever weight allows you to do that many reps twice (a.k.a. two sets of x reps). Don't do both sets together; do one set of one exercise, then one of some complementary exercise, then do the last set of the first and the last set of the second.
Whatever route you choose: good luck :)
P.S. A note on soreness: you should be tired after your workouts, and a little soreness the next day is fine. What's not fine is being near-unable to use your muscles after a workout. Too much soreness actually impedes the recovery process, so take it easy ;)
Somehow though, cycling does it for me. I can go fast. It can take me places conveniently. I can do it out there in nature when I get out of the city on weekends. And, it fits in with my need to tinker with mechanical stuff :)
Make being active a part of your daily experience: walk, run, or bike to your office. Get a gym membership nearby so you can clean up before going to work. Go back to the gym to do some lifting on your lunch breaks Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This will perk you up in the middle of the day and keep you from falling into a post-lunch food coma. After your day at the office is over, you've got another burst of activity awaiting you in order to get home.
Diversify from workout routines and take time off. Block six to ten weeks for the routine, then take a break for two weeks and try out informal, social exercise (pickup sports, dance classes). Go hiking, do yoga, or catch up on your social life in an active way, like a pub crawl or one of the boozy bicycle group tours.
1) Wake up very early (goal is 6:30am) to spend an hour working on fitness before breakfast and starting class.
2) Follow /r/bodyweightfitness and /r/running, and use their beginner programs to come up with my own schedule Mondays through Saturday.
3) Explore my city (walking, biking, hiking) early Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon.
I think a major step in the right direction is waking up early and getting your exercise "out of the way" for the day. It serves as a huge motivator and is a great routine to become accustomed to. Not to mention, on Saturdays, if you wake up very early, you can fit in 6 or 7 hours of fun and exploration and still have half the day to be productive afterward.
Personally I love it as a time to unwind. I spend so much time staring at a screen both for work and for fun (I typically spend my down time playing Counter Strike) that its nice to do something more primitive.
I also try to go hunting or multiple day hiking fairly regularly. I always feel more appreciative of what I have and my station in life after a few days sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag.
1) I signed up for gym classes with a limited (13) number of sessions per month.
This forces me to go 13 times a month. If I don't go, I'll be wasting money and psychologically I don't like knowing that I just threw away money. That's worked for me better than signing up for unlimited and never end up going since I would mentally think, "oh I could go tomorrow I've got infinite gym sessions."
2) I stopped eating out every day and cooked for myself. I learned how to butcher a whole chicken to save on money.
I've lost about 15% of my weight over 14 months. My clothes are all baggy now but that's a different set of problems.
Amazing piece of equipment. Fits in a small space and will give you an amazing workout. I love mine.
I mix rowing with pullups, pushups, curls, overhead press with kettlebell for upper body.
Overall it's a nice base workout that you can do at home before or after work.
