Hey dharley. First good for you for making some life choices. Secondly, any piece of equipment
will work if you work at it. Later you may grow out of it but to start off with you will see results especially in your first 6 months to a year.
Normally I was around 160 - 165 lbs but after moving to a desk job in over a year or so I went up to 193 lbs; mostly around my waist. All I did was come home from work, get into my recliner and watch TV till I went to bed and then rinse and repeat. In 1997 at the age of 29 I decided to make a change for the good. I started a simple weight lifting plan that I modified from a Men's Health Magazine article. I pulled out the old plastic weights and Weider bench I got when 16 and finally put it to its paces. It was a full body workout and took me about 1.5 hours 2-3 days a night.
My body hated me but I forced myself to do it. I'm a night person so I would usually start at 10:00 PM and then at 11:30 I would hit my steam bath; what a god send. On top of this I stopped completely sweets and did so for over a year. I didn't change my eating habits really at all but in 6 months I was at 165 lbs and stronger then I had ever been. Oh ya, I'm 5'8.5". After seeing those types of results I started to work out harder and started to purchase books and magazines and also looked on the internet to further educated myself. I started to eat a lot better. Then I made friends with a guy who is a body builder and things really took off. Cleanly by 2002 I was 207 lbs and stronger then I had ever been in my life; a looked awesome.
I'm 40 now and still lifting. I still lift at home but have enough metal weights, plates, bars and 3 benches (one olympic with squat rack). I occasionally lift in the gym when I catch up with my buddy, which helps for motivation, critiquing and learning new things. I'm not as strong as I was then and am around 198 lbs cleanly but since 2002 I have also been doing martial arts religiously.
What I'm relating is while I'm not 45 years old, age means little. I plan to lift for life and will be at that age in 5 years. The thing is just do it. The harder you work at it the more results you will see.
If I can give you any tip I would suggest starting
slow. Over the years since 14 I had tried to weight lifting but always failed. As a young adult I hit the gym with buddies for months that never lasted. The thing was we did not start slow and always pushed things. In 1997 I decided I would start slow and lift weights that I knew I could easily do and would
gradually increase them as my body adjusted to the stress. Even with these light weights my body did not like me but I was in for the long haul. The aches and pains increased testing my will power and when it realized I wasn't going to quit it did and then my lifting really took off.
And one other tip I would suggest. Take some measurements of yourself now and record them. Take measurements every 3 months or more. Record each of your workouts and write down what you did for exercises, weights, etc. Also a short blurb of how you felt, aches, pains, soreness, injuries. Keep a running log so that you can refer back to it. With this you can look back to see "what" was working and "what" wasn't to help you develop a better workout plan. For me I log in workouts a head of time to motivate myself to actually work out that day. I keep a running log of how many weeks and how many days I've been doing it and as of tonight I finished 505 weeks and 1273 workouts.
Good luck to you; from another 40+ year old ... and a fellow motorcycler; though I ride a 2007 Yamaha YZF-R6.
