Q: Hi mike. I have a couple questions that I hope you and your expertise can help me with. To give a little quick background information: I used to work our 4-5 times a week. At that time I weighed ~185 pounds with ~7% body fat at 5'6". Three and half years ago I injured my back rupturing three discs, ultimately requiring surgery 14 months ago. I went through some physical therapy for my injury and am clear to work out again. I immediately rejoined my local gym when my doctor said it was OK to work out as long as I limited stress put on my lower back. Since the injury my lifestyle was inactive, and I was "comfort eating", I've gained some weight. Currently I weigh ~220 pounds and am 29 years old. I would like to get down to the 160 pound range. With my injury, exercises that put pressure on my lower back are generally off of the table. I won't be able to do things like squats using a free barbell, dead lifts and such. My questions are: What exercises would you recommend I do, specifically for the lower half of my body to try and limit the amount of pressure on my lower back while exercising. Also, I never really had to limit my caloric intake for the purpose of losing weight, what number would you recommend I start at? How much cardio should I be doing considering the fact I am 60ish pounds overweight. I would like to lose those 60 pounds over the course of a year. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

A: I am very reluctant to give injury rehab advice, especially over the internet -- you really should check with your doctor or physical therapist as far as what specific exercises are safe for you to do. If that's absolutely not an option I would start with bodyweight lunges (either walking or in-place) and see how they feel. If these go well you can build your lower body workouts around them (holding dumbbells for extra resistance if needed). If you are able to run full speed I would also introduce max-speed sprints with short rest intervals in between into your program -- essentially HIIT training (search on my site for 'HIIT' if you are not sure what it is).

As far as calories you should have good metabolism potential thanks to being in great shape before your injury. So I would start at a fairly high calorie level and let your body 'grow into it'. So the weight loss won't be fast initially but by allowing your metabolism rev up to its full potential you'll be able to eventually start and maintain weight loss for a long time, hopefully good for full 60 pounds in 1 year (which is a very reasonable goal). Start with this diet and feel free to even increase its calories a bit if you start losing weight immediately. Again, the goal with your diet should be to get your metabolism up to its max as opposed to just quick weight loss. If you remember your pre-injury diet you should aim for a calorie level around 500 calories fewer than what it used to be, mainly at the expense of fewer carbs.