Back to the gym part 1, 2 and 3

I have not been in a gym or lifted weights for 18 months. I blew my back out from a combination of car crash and squats and had a fully herniated disk in my spine which was due for surgery

you can see the disk at the l5-s1 joint protruding out of its normal position and pressing on the nerve which then goes down to my legs causing Sciatica which is pain down your legs due to damage to your nerve higher up in the body. (the disk above also looks pretty crap and is putting some more pressure on the spinal nerve and is pretty see through meaning normal Disk Degeneration disease, yeah!)

It crippled me. Litterly. Couldn't even sit. and got slightly addicted to painkillers.

Anyway, onto the point of this blog post.
I am back. (but still without a spine)
squats and deadlifts and anything that puts load onto my spine is out of the question. So over head presses are scary and not going to happen.

So bench, and seated rows and pull downs are all go.

Firstly where was I before the injury and where am i now?

Before the injury
Bench 
managed 125kg

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2X9iPh8HHLA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

and again 124kg and 60kg  for 24reps afterwards

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LFHvXIZxKag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Pull ups
managed to do one with a full 36kg hanging from my waist  along with 10 reps with 10kg attached
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3EqfGWM3fhU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Current condition

Bench 60kg x5
pull up - 0 Pull down 50kg x2

How to Drop Weight and Get fit

Trying to lose weight

tip 1, Dont go by the daily recommeded guidlines for calorie consumption. Which for adult men is 2500Kcal and for adult women is 2000Kcal.
The first thing you need to do is find out your RMR or BMR (resting metabolic rate) which will let you know how many calories a day you will be burning just by being alive.
there are a lot of bodyweight scales that can take your measurements of height, age, sex and body fat percentages and advise you what your BMR is. For myself I am 181cm tall, 31years old, 21% body fat, 38% muscle male and my BMR is 1850Kcal
Then eyeball your average daily aditional expenditure.  If you are having a rest day and you are literly sitting in the house watching a marathon session of Game of thrones then your additional expenditure will be pretty damn close to your BMR however if you go for a 20km hill run... well that is a different thing.
If your 9-5 life involves you sitting in an office sending emails, then your 5-9 life involves you going home standing in your kitchen, making your dinner then watching tv before having a bath... guess what, its still pretty much the same as your BMR. Dont assume your 40 minute yoga class twice a week will make you burn a lot of calories.

To drop weight and hopefully fat, you need to reduce the amount of calories your body consumes compared to expends. (be careful with this as eating 2000Kcal of almonds may mean your mouth has consumed all those calories but when you shit them all out almost hole the next morning, then you can seriously be off the mark with the amount of calories your body has actually consumed/absorbed.
But if you drop too many calories then there can be negative preoccupations to that as well.
the biggest tip is to try and be within the range of a drop of 15-20% calories... a week. trying to be that accurate every day is impossible but easier to gauge when looking at the calories over a week.

So if sitting on your ass doing nothing and trying to lose weight. (good luck with that) you will have to be consuming less than 1500Kcal (for me) a day which is possible but incredibly dull.

Far better is to burn more calories via exercise. however a big shock to some people is how few calories are burnt during some forms of exercise in comparison to their Percieved level of exertion (The Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE)

To have the most effective fat burning and body changing exercise I recommend doing Fasted Morning cardio
and if you want to get fit at the same time you need your hear rate at around 70%-90% of max (for a 31 year old that is133-171bpm.  
The early stages of taking on an exercise program having your heart rate around 140 for an extended period of time could be incredibly taxing and difficult. but the fitter you get the easier it is to the point where you will able to hit a treadmil or cross trainer and have your heart rate at that level for an hour and barely get out of breath or break much of a sweat. and that is when you need to start pushing yourself up to the more 171bpm levels.

The next thing to do and is possibly the MOST IMPORTANT is being able to do some form of WEIGHT TRAINING!!!
This may not be the best for losing 'weight' but it is very important that while trying to lose weight you dont inadvertantly end up losing muscle and weight training will help you keep that hard earned muscle.

Alternatively
HILL SPRINTS
nothing else matters

and lastly
as promoted by any health professional

Drink LOADS of WATER!