Increase general fitness??

Eat more. Eat healthier. Do some cardio (Jogging everyday for example). Do some muscular training 3-4 times a week (push-ups, sit-ups, weight lifting, etc).

 

It's the little things that count I suppose. At work, try and walk to someone elses cubicle instead of emailing. Take the stair instead of the elevator. On your lunch break take a 5 minute walk. Easy changes that Try and take a walk or bike ride at least 3-4 times a week and stretch after.
You can do some at home strength exersizes. Bicep and tricep exersizes can be done with a can of soup. Hamstring and quad exersizes can be done with "wall sits" and lunges. When these are easier for you, try holding a can add a can of soup or milk jug for added difficulty.
As for diet, add more fruits, veggies, lean meat (like chicken, pork, fish, and turkey) and low fat milk or yogurt. Try eating bigger snacks through the day. It's suggested to keep your motabolism steadier and less hungry so you don't binge eat at meals.
Try to make your own trail mix. I have made a few batches and taste great. I use peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins and oatmeal squares. Try to pre-portion "snackable" foods like trail mix, carrots, celery, apple slices(use a touch of lemon or lime juice to keep them from browning), cereal, yogurt, and things like that. This way you can grab and go. You can try the carnation instant breakfast as an "add on" for a meal to bump calories up. Cereal bars and fiber one bars can be great as a quick breakfast.
Sorry I rambled a little, but just giving suggestions.

 

If you don't have any weights, there are lots of bodyweight exercises that you can do. They won't get you muscly (unless you start doing them with weights) but they will increase your strength and are a great starting point.
Lunges, calf raises, squats, pushups, crunches, tricep dips, pullups (if you can find something sturdy to pull up on) are examples of what you can do with just your bodyweight. You can find great instruction videos on Youtube for them too - if they are holding weights in the video then just do it without.

As TraceElement said you can improvise weights using household objects, like a bottle full of water. You can get dumbbells pretty cheaply second hand though (it's not like they are any different to new ones) and if you can get ones where you can add and remove the plates you're already prepared for when you need to increase the weight as you progress.

 

Keep it fun. I recommend walking or light jogging for a half an hour every other day, that is, 3-4 times per week.

 

Rock climb!! Makes you super strong. Bouldering will make you muscle-y.

 

JUST FYI, that Sig is ace :icon_wink.

But yeah, that sounds good.

I'm planning on doing more free weights (I have a couple @ 15lbs+ each, but I don't have the floor space to use them right now :icon_redf), running more up to like 10mi a week (with rest since my right knee has a damaged ACL), biking to and from work (6mi commute) with some longer rides in once a week or whenever I can (15-25mi+), along with taking up some kind of more active activities and such. Diets good, but I'll still keep it up.

I'd recommend looking at exercises and working towards being able to do more of them, planks (When done safely and not for amusement) can be great for strengthening core muscles, and such. If you can get a pull up bar, and work with that in a safe location (Don't just mount it on some rickety trim and fall down/get injured) it can be a good way of improving strength if you just gradually work on it.

Rotating exercises and activities is important so that you don't get repetitive injuries or over-train. That and add in some time for rest too, since working 24/7 (Like I am now :/) isn't good and can cause set backs or even more delays in training.

 

One thing that comes up a lot on this forum: people don't want to lift weights because they don't want to get too big.
I can absolutely assure you 100% that you can't accidentally get too muscly. Bodybuilders spend ten or fifteen years getting to where they are - it takes a very long time and a huge amount of effort to gain muscle mass. To gain muscle you need to be constantly pushing your body, which means constantly increasing the weight you are using when you get too strong to handle what you already have. This makes it really easy to stop when you get to your goal - all you have to do is not increase the weight any more.

Running won't really help you with strength. It will help with endurance and fitness and breathing and so on (which are important), but not strength. You will only get stronger if you are moving around more weight than your body can comfortable cope with - i.e. weightlifting. Pushups and situps would count as this but they are only going to make your chest+triceps and stomach stronger respectively, so you need to do other exercises too.

 

These:

If you want to progress past just using your bodyweight, almost all of these can be made more difficult with weights.

 

This is a really important point.

Weight training is only one kind of resistance training. Resistance training is working the muscles in ways that overcome gravity. For example, when you lay on the ground and lift your leg, you are using the muscles to lift the weight of your leg to overcome gravity. If you add an ankle weight, you are increasing the resistance. If you use a leg lift weight machine, you are adding even more weight to increase the resistance.

Any resistance to gravity- whether it's your body weight, a supplemental weight, a weight machine, etc- is the same. It's all a matter of degrees.

Resistance training is very important for both men and women. It plays an important role in the maintenance of bone strength and bone health.

If the goal is general health, a basic exercise class may be enough. If you want to look good naked, calisthenics and basic resistance training using low weights may be enough. If you're interested in developing muscle, then you may want to add more weight via machines or free weights.

 

Well, there's nothing wrong with being healthy and looking good, too.

There's several different fitness companies that are doing DVDs with structured workout programs that require no equipment or inexpensive equipment. In the US, this varies from Jillian Michaels' workouts to the more intense programs like P90X and Insanity.

You might look into the cost of classes - the advantage is that the instructor can make sure you're doing the exercises correctly. I'm not sure of the cost in your country but in the US, the classes are less $20 US per class or in some cases, a monthly membership can be as little as $50 US per month.