Ok. First a little background. I started at 265 pounds and 28%BF in November 2003. I am currently as of this morning at 235 and 21% BF. Here is my current workout schedule.
Monday - 40 minutes Cardio high intensity.
Incline press 4 set of 12 reps at 60lbs.
Arm Extension 4 sets of 12 reps at 50 lbs
Shoulder Press 4 sets of 12 reps at 50 lbs
Pec Deck 4 sets of 12 reps at 40 lbs
Tuesday - 40 minutes Cardio Hig Intesity.
Abs 4 sets of 12 at 60 lbs
Seated Row 4 sets of 12 at 70 lbs
Lat Pulldown 4 sets of 12 at 70 lbs
Curls 4 sets of 12 at 50 lbs.
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Repeat of Monday
Friday - Repeat of Tuesday
Saturday and Sunday Off

My main focus is weight loss. Currently my diet is pretty much normal. I have substitured anything that calls for Hamburger with Ground Whitemeat turkey, and use Whole Wheat Bread, Pasta and Bagels. I also use freash and frozen Veggies and fruit.


Here is my problem. Even though I think that I am eating healthy I usually feel guilty about not working out and end up going to the gym for some type of workout. My wife who is 8 months pregnant thinks I am obsessed and is concerned that this is not healthy. She regularly attends with me until recently when her pregnancy has left her unable to.

My goal weight is 190 lbs by December 1. This means I need to lose about 1.5 lbs per week. I get discouraged when I step on the scale and see not weight loss or a weight gain.

My question

Is this normal or am I obsessed?

both :)

it's normal to be obsesed, if you're not, it's hard to put yourself through what we are and make the sacrifices we are.

Beating yourself up over the odd snack isn't good, but being accountable to yourself is, you can't have the "it won't hurt" attitude, but like wise once you've done something, it's gone and doing 500 hours cardio won't change the past, so no point worrying about it.

Small point on your work outs, it's preferable to do cardio on seperate days to your lifting, even if your goal is fat loss. If you did that you wouldn't have so many rest days and maybe feel like you're doing more? Even if you can't, do your cardio after lifting, you need to be totally fresh for your lifting and the very definition of HIIT means you should be almost dead when you've finished, not full of energy ready for a full lifting session.
As you've been at this for a while you will probably benefit from reducing your reps and increasing the weight, you should find you get much better gains that way, even on a cutting diet.

Finally, you need to do some lower body exercises, don't neglect those legs, you can easily put on lots of muscle here and more muscle = more fat burning, as well as looking good! If you drop to say 3x8 for each exercise you can easily move them around and add in a full legs work out in the same amount of time. As long as you do everything full intensity 3x8 is more than enough to give each muscle a full work out.

Great job on thr 30lb so far and keep it up :)

Since we are expecting the baby I do not have time to workout on the weekends. This is time that I spend with my wife and preparing the house for the new arrival ( our first). It is not that I have an occasional snack that is bad. I eat the same all 7days of the week. Making sure that I avoid "bad" foods. I do my cardio on aArc Trainer (http://www.fitnesssource.ca/product_info.php?products_id=59) In 40 minutes I can burn 800-900 calories according to the machine on the interval setting.

I am not too concerned with muscle gain right now. My main focus is dropping the fat. I will add my legs to get that workout also. My time constraint is another reason I am doing both on the same day. I supose that I could just do Cardio on Wednesday for 30-40 minutes to resolve the guilt.

Machines usually tell the calorie burning too high.

The more muscle the have, the easier its going to be to have that lower body fat. Muscle burns far more calories than fat.
I'm too sure exactly what, but I've seen people around here say your burning an extra 500 calories a day with 5 pounds of lean muscle? (Don't take me for granted on that one I'm not sure).
Seperate cardio from weight days.