Hi!

I'm a 29 yr old female, 5'5 and weigh about 155 lbs and I've been trying to lose about 10lbs but with no results so far!

Currently I do about 40 mins cycling and about 15 mins weight training about 5x a week. (I've been doing this for about 3 weeks now)

My diet is fairly healthy, I hardly ever eat out or eat junk food.

Here's a normal day's diet:

Breakfast: (8 am)
2 instant coffees with skim milk and low cal sweetner.
(I have a hard time eating anything in the morning, just never hungry at that time!)

Lunch: (noon)
(I always eat at the cantina at work that serves pretty healthy meals low in salt) So my meals usually consist of chicken breast, or steamed fish and a side dish of veggies (usually green veggies), maybe accompanied by a ceasar salad and water.

I usually dont snack throughout the day until about 5pm when I get home where I'll maybe have a handfull of mixed unsalted nuts and another instant coffee.

I drink about 1L of water per day and about 4 tall glasses of unsweetend apple juice.... and more coffee! LOL

For supper: (8pm)

Usually something light, like a spinach salad with tuna, sweetcorn and sunflower seeds with olive oil, or a fillet of fish with squeezed lemon and that's it.

I always workout in the evening (around 6pm) and on an empty stomach.

I just dont know what I'm doing wrong! Do I need to do more cardio? More weight training? Eat less or more? WHAT!!???? LOL

Last year I enrolled in a Gym for 5 months, where I did 30 mins cardio and 20 mins weights 3x a week for 5 months, and I gave up because I saw absolutely NO RESULTS!

HELP!!

you lunch and dinner look great. but you need about 6 meals a day (the thermogenic effect of food), all healthy like those two. breakfast is a must, it gets the metabolism going. with only 2 meals a day your body is probably in starvation mode, so your metabolism is trying to store as much as it can.. which could be why you're not seeing results.

Thanks for your reply, I'll definately give it a shot.

I just never know what to snack or what to have for breakfast. Is a bowl of cereal or oats enough for a good breakfast? Or maybe some Muslix with yogurt and a bit of honey?

And what for that 4pm snack? Is a granola bar or some baby carrots enough, for example?

DO NOT SKIP BREAKFAST - even if you're not hungry!

All of your meals should be around the same size - don't think of them as lunch, snack, supper, etc. So, your question about te 4pm meal - a granola bar or carrots is certainly not enough. First of all, most granola bars are loaded with trans fats and sugars - not healthy at all. You can make your own, or have something else. Maybe some tuna salad, cottage cheese, lean meat (for protein) with the carrots? Does that sound reasonable?

For breakfast, some whole wheat cereal (oatmeal, grape nuts, shredded wheat, kashi) and some protein like egg whites are perfect - not to mention quick preparation.

Your exercise looks fine - although, try using a different cardio machine every-so-often so your body doesn't get used to the bike. And you may want to look into doing more weight training as muscle burns far more calories than fat - the more muscle you have, the better!

Wow! It just seems like it's so much food!! It's kinda scary but I'll give it a try anyway, got nuthin' to lose, right? My diet was obviously not working so...

Also, could you give me advice on weight training exercises I can do from home? The only thing I do now are lunges, crunches and bicept & tricept curls. How much of each should I ideally be doing?

It does seem like a lot of food - when I first started eating 7 meals a day, I was full all the time. It certainly takes some getting used to. But you can't argue with the results.

Check out these sites for info on lifting: http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html and http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WtFemale.html. Also search around on these forums as there's a ton of info for beginners.