Q: Are Odwalla juices good sources of protein? I drink a 450 ml. bottle of Odwalla twice a day (it has 10 grams of protein). I have breakfast, an odwalla shake, lunch, an odwalla shake, and then dinner. Is this ok? Also, before dinner I use the treadmill for 30 minutes, and then spend 10 minutes on my Total gym. Is this ok for FAT loss? Also, what exactly is proper weight training?

A: No! Things like Odwalla juices (or other juices in general) are one of the last things you want when trying to lose fat. Look at the nutrition label for one serving of it. A 450ml bottle has 60 grams of carbs of which 40 are sugar! You goal is to have as little sugar as possible during the day, instead concentrating on nice fiberous sources of carbs like whole grains, veggies, and some fruits or berries (the latter two do have a lot of sugar -- fructose -- but the also have a lot of fiber which will slow the digestion down. While Odwalla and all other juices simply keep the sugar while throwing away most of the other good stuff).

DO NOT DRINK JUICES. Eat REAL ACTUAL FRUITS instead. Whoever came up with the idea that juices are great for you is a marketing genius, but it doesn't mean you have to fall for it. It's going to be a long long time before the man can top nature in producing nutricious healthy foods. Eat foods in their natural forms as much as possible. For fruits it means eating the actual oranges and apples and bananas and strawberries and NOT eating their sugars squeezed into a bottle. As for that little bit of protein in Odwalla, there's nothing magical about it and you can get it from any number of foods (once again, in a more natural state). In Odwalla's case they use soy protein and if that's what you're after, you can eat some edamame beans! Otherwise you can eat any number of meat, chicken, fish, legumes, etc. and get the same protein. You can also get whey protein powder if you have problems getting enough protein from regular foods.

Please read my nutrition article to see how to eat right for fat loss. I can't comment on your breakfast/lunch/dinner since you didn't specify what you have in those meals, but the two Odwalla shakes definitely need to go.

The second part of your question was about training... 30 minutes a day cardio is too much while 10 minutes of weights is not enough. If your Total Gym is the one advertised by Chuck Norris, then it's a pretty limited machine. It gives you a workout focusing on your arms, shoulders, and chest but ignoring legs and
back which is where most of your muscle mass is. So you have less than half (in fact, probably only around 30% if you're doing the typical exercises on it) of your muscles actively contributing to fat loss. Please check out my bodyweight-only and dumbbell-only programs in the Article section to see how you can improve your workouts with minimal equipment. You can combine some of those suggestions (especially for legs and back) with your Total Gym workout for a much more complete program.

Finally, 'proper' weighttraining is what I describe here. I can't summarize it in just one sentence, but probably the two most important points are using fairly heavy weights (such that you can't lift it more than 12 times in a row) and exercising as many of your body's muscles as possible! But please read the whole article.

If you post what you eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner, I can probably give you some tips on how to improve those as well. In the meanwhile, please read the nutrition and weighttraining articles I pointed you to and lose those Odwalla shakes! Good luck!