Q: I'm a 5'10, 200 lb Woman. I have a treadmill and a total gym in my basement which I never use. I want to lose weight, but I don't know how much I shoul loose or how to loose it. I've tried fad diets, but as you know they don't give long lasting results. Please, will you reccomend an excercise program and a diet plan for me? I'm 47 years old and desperate! Please, please help me.

A: Sure! At your height you probably want to be somewhere in 150-160 lbs range or less, so you're looking at losing 40-50 lbs. Good news is that it's very doable as long as you're willing to give it your best effort and be patient. Allow 1 year or even longer to lose all that weight. Faster weightloss (as you've probably experienced with fad diets) just comes right back. So slow and steady is your goal. Try for about 1 pound of weight lost per week and definitely no faster than 2 pounds per week. Consult with your doctor first, especially if you've never really exercised before. Assuming everything's OK, here's how to eat and exercise...

Read My nutrition article and try to really understand all of its points. Reread it as necessary. This is your overall guide to healthy eating. Then look at the sample fat-burning diet -- it happens to be just about right for somebody like you. This is your new daily diet. Pay very careful attention to portion sizes -- they're all fairly small and if you're overly generous with your servings it can easily turn from fat-burning diet to a fat-gaining one. Be careful and measure your portions, especially in the beginning, if you're not sure. Switch to this gradually, over a couple of weeks and maintain it from that point on.

For your exercise, first read through my Weighttraining article and understand it like you did with the Nutrition one. You can then pick from any of the weightlifting programs given in that article. To do the exercises, you'll want to either dust off that total gym machine or join a gym yourself. I recommend joining the gym since it'll provide you with much wider equipment selection. Plus most people find gyms more motivating than working out at home by themselves. Assuming you join the gym, you can use this as an exercise reference. If you decide to go with your total gym machine, you can use a guide that should've come with it that describes some of the different exercises you can perform and what body parts they target and substitute total gym exercises for the ones I give in my sample workout routines. If you're not sure what total gym exercise work what muscle, you can try describing it to me and I'll try to give you an answer. On the whole though, if possible I once again recommend the full gym. When weight training, remember to make the weights heavy, so that you physically can't lift them more then 12-15 times -- that's needed for the weight training to be an effective fat-burner.

For cardio, use either your tradmill or just run 2-3 times per week for 20-30 minutes each time.
Now that you have your exercise program and your nutrition program it's going to be important for you to keep track of your progress and adjust your diet to keep on track for that 1 pound per week weight loss. Don't start tracking till 2-3 weeks into the program (first few weeks are always an adjustment period and your weight can go down or even up quite a bit -- ignore it!). Once you start tracking it, track it closely. Weigh yourself every morning on empty stomach before eating or drinking. Don't worry about day-to-day fluctuations, but make sure that over one month you lose about 4 pounds. If you're losing too fast, add a little more food into your diet. If you're not losing fast enough, decrease serving sizes.

Your success will depend on how closely you can stick to these programs. It's easy to overeat and wipe out all your efforts -- watch your diet most closely. It won't come easy, but if you fully invest yourself into doing this, you will reap great rewards. Good luck!