Q: Im somewhat active,24 f i weigh 162lbs. I go to the gym 5 days a week for 45 min a day. i usually speed walk at 4.0 at a 10 inc, and then jog a mile at 4.2 at 0 inc. I dont eat that much, two meals a day and a healthy snack like a rice cake or fruit after the gym. Ive lost 5 lbs in two weeks but you would never know the difference. Can you reccomend a workout plan for me that will show results. My goal is to lose 25 lbs before the new year. I dont have access to much equipment at my local gym, treadmill, eliptical, weights, bike, and a few leg machines.

A: Your goal is doable. You have half a year to lose 25 pounds, which is right at one pound per week weight loss pace that I usually recommend. However you need a lot of changes to your training and your diet. If I understand correctly you are a woman and some of the things I suggest may strike you as not suitable for a woman looking to lose weight, but please just trust me on this -- as you've noticed yourself your current approach isn't working...

The biggest change you'll need to make is to start weight training, primarily using freeweights (dumbbells and barbell) and sometimes using machines. If you haven't already, read my weight training article and try to understand it the best you can. Weight training (combined with the right diet) is the best way BY FAR to raise metabolism and burn fat effectively.

You will need to weighttrain your whole body and use fairly heavy (for you) weights while doing so. By using heavy weights I mean that for every exercise you will need to pick such a weight that you can only lift it 12 or fewer times before exhaustion. The actual weights will be different for all the different exercise, but they all will have in common that you can only do them around 12 times max before needing a rest. This is a very important point: do not pick a weight that you can lift 20 times and barely break a sweat. Do pick a weight trat truly exhausts you after 10-12 reps and lift it right up to the point of exhaustion (called 'muscular failure' or 'failure').

The second point about weight training is to train your entire body using big compound exercises. These includes squats, deadlifts, lunges, pullups and/or pulldowns, rows, bench press and they should be the core of your training program. They work nearly all your muscle groups getting the most fat burning out of them. Work as many of your muscles as possible with heavy weights and YOU WILL BURN FAT.

I recommend this weight training program as a good one for you to use. For the first 2-3 weeks use light weights until you get used to all the exercises. It's important that you perform them all properly or you risk both injury and subpar results. If you are not sure how to perform an exercise, come back here and ask me or search on the web for a picture/video. (I'm working on adding pictures of different exercises to my site, but it's going slowly right now. After those first 2-3 weeks start increasing the weights until you get to that 12-rep to failure limit that I described above. Then remember to increase weights slowly month-to-month because you will keep getting stronger and stronger.

Just a couple more notes about that sample workout program -- you can replace pullups with the pulldown machine or, if your gym doesn't have one, with dumbbell or barbell rows. You can also replace incline bench press with a plain flat bench press. Also remember to take a week's break from the gym after 2-3 months of following this program and then come back and use some other program (check the weight training article for a number of them).

Now... your diet also needs a lot of changes. If you haven't already, read my nutrition article and try to understand it the best you can. Rice cakes are a very very poor snack when trying to lose weight and you should eliminate them immediately. In the nutrition article you will find a sample fat loss diet at 1900 calories. That diet plan is actually very appropriate for you, except you do not want to jump directly to 1900 calories now because right now you're probably eating around 1000-1200 calories a day so you need to ramp up gradually. First switch to the 4-5 meals per day similar to the sample diet, but make the meals very small, about 2/3 of the size in the sample diet. Portion control is very important here. Stick with that for a few weeks, then increase meal sizes again very slightly, to may be 3/4 of the sample ones. Again stick with that for a month and increase again. Do that till you come close to the sample diet or at least to 1500-1700 calories per day split over 5 meals or so.

This diet plan is meant to include ALL that you eat during the day. That means no snacking and no ice cream cheats. Obviously you won't be able to avoid them altogether, but keep these extra meals/snacks/cheats to a minimum.

Again, don't be alarmed by the seemingly large amount of food that I'm asking you to eat. You'll ramp up to eat gradually and if you perform proper weight training, your body will take all this food and still be a fat burning machine!

Finally, you will need to cut down your cardio quite a bit. Perform it 2-3 times per week, on non-weight training days, for 20-30 minutes max. You can actually decrease it even further if you wish. Remember that your primary allies in burning fat and losing weight are your good diet and your weight training!

That's about it. Again it probably seems like the exact opposite of correct advice, but please trust me on this :) Do your best to learn all the weight training exercises, perform them safely using good form, but perform them at high intensity (i.e. with heavy weights) coming close to the point of muscular failure on each set. Yes, it will not necessarily always be pleasant, but no pain no gain. Same thing for the diet -- try to eat often but in small portions with lots of veggies and fish or meat or other protein source in each meal. Come back here and ask me any questions as needed. Good luck!