I'm new to the board, but not to diet and exercise. My experience began 5months ago when I went to see a fitness trainer. He personalized a diet and exercise program for me. Well, with lots of days off and cheating I have only managed to loose ten pounds! Too ashamed to go back, I have decided to change up my routine.
This is what my schedule consists of now:
weight training 4x a week
cardio 6x a week for 30 minutes
calorie intake...1500 on active days, 1200 on inactive days.

This is my goal:
Now: 166 lbs
5'5

goal: Jan 15, 2004
145 lbs

Is this goal unrealistic? Any help would be great. I'm more disaplined with my work out then in the kitchen! Thanks

That's not really unrealistic, but your calories are _too low_. You will kill your metabolism that way which is just sabbotaging your efforts. Keep calories at least 1500-1600 on NON workout days and a couple hundred higher on lifting days. Keep the food clean as you can stand and you will see some results. If you really do the resistance training and cardio, it will be a *relatively* rapid change. Keep in mind, WEIGHT LOSS should not be as important as FAT LOSS. If you lose more weight than could possibly be fat, it's just muscle and water loss which is hurting rather than helping you if you plan to keep weight off.

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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins

Thanks for the reply!! This whole business with calories....when and how much, when not to, ect, can be very intimidating and frustrating. Everyone always says to cut calories, but you never know what the magic number is. do you know any good websites for this?
Thanks for all your help!

There are several great websites, but I'm not allowed to post tem. Google for "exercise muscle" and you'll get several hits for pages that have fairly good BMR calculators. But rule of thumb is 10 or 11x body weight in calories when dieting. 10 is pushing it, but any lower than that and you're risking a lot of muscle and ruining your metabolism.

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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins