I am a 5'11'' female and I weigh 188 lbs. I would like to lose about 25-30 lbs and get around 160 lbs or so which is much closer to my ideal weight. Is it possible to get down to this weight by the new year?

I have a treadmill that I like to run on as its too hot/humid for me to be running outside here in Houston. I also bought a weight machine recently that I can do about 50 exercises on. I mainly want to use these machines to build up my upper body, and do some leg work on it..but I really prefer to do legwork using dumbbells and barbells etc as I get a much better workout that way.

My main concern is my diet. About a 3 months ago I was eating extremely healthly/clean for 2 months straight. I felt great and was losing weight, but like always I got bored with the food and after I went out of town I slowly went back to my old crappy eating habits. I feel more lathargic and just not as energized as when I was eating healthy. I love eating healthy but the problem is that I get bored with eating the same foods over and over and I need to know how to eat a variety of healthy things to not get bored.

Before I was eating a lot of frozen/raw veggies, fruit, cottage cheese, whole wheat bread, tuna, chicken, and salmon but that is pretty much it. As you can imagine after two months that got pretty boring. Can anyone recommend other things that I can eat and not get bored with?

Also, as far as the weightlifting I would love to do a split workout, so I will probably do something like

Monday - Legs/Abs
Tues - Cardio
Weds - Back/Bis
Thurs - Cardio
Friday - Chest/Tris
Saturday - Cardio
Sunday - Rest

I prefer fasted AM HIIT over LISS for the cardio. As far as diet, I did some calculating and would probably consume ~2100 cals/day. I hoping that would let me lose maybe 1lb-1.5 lbs per week and I could be really close to losing at least 20-25lbs by the end of the year, but overall I would like to lose at least 30lbs however long it takes.

Can anyone give me some tips/advice on my workout/diet and if it is possible to lose this weight by the end of the year?

It's possible to lose the majority of that weight at a healthy rate by the new year, but not all of it.

I'm not very good in the culinary department (or with diets for that matter), but I don't think food variety is necessarily needed, rather the creative use of spices, combination of the foods you do eat, and use different methods of preparation can help keep you from getting bored.

Your split routine sounds fine. What are you thinking in terms of sets / reps and exercises?

Good luck! :gl:

I really prefer to do legwork using dumbbells and barbells etc as I get a much better workout that way.

Can anyone give me some tips/advice on my workout/diet and if it is possible to lose this weight by the end of the year?

You seem to have a reasonable handle on it. I would just suggest that you think about using step-ups in some of your cardio. When you have a good deal of weight to lose, it's a good way to use that to your advantage, and also, the step-ups cuts way down on the reps, which gives your knees and lower limbs a break from running.

I don't think food variety is necessarily needed, rather the creative use of spices, combination of the foods you do eat, and use different methods of preparation can help keep you from getting bored.


I really agree. Scrambled egg whites by themselves get boring pretty fast. However, adding a tablespoon of salsa gives it a totally different taste. There are hundreds of different salsa brands out there. Most are less than 10-15 calories per tablespoon. 10-15 calories won't break anyone. I'm on a green salsa kick right now, but before that, it was pineapple salsa.

Chicken can be boring, but add some lemon pepper. Or a no cal BBQ rub. Or garlic. Or Italian dressing. I can have chicken six times a week and it can be different every night. Bake it, broil it, grill it.

Buy one kind of fruit for the week. Next week, buy another kind.

You can have potatoes with a small dollop of ff sour cream or mashed with some no calorie butter spray or sweet potatoes with a little cinnamon and splenda. Or make that sweet potato into baked fries and sprinkle the cinnamon splenda on them.

Cottage cheese. Oh the things you can do with it! Add some fresh mango to it. Add peaches to it. Maybe a little fruit yogurt. Or add it to a blender, add some splenda, some protein powder and blend it. Then freeze it for an hour, let it sit out for 5-10 minutes and eat it. Tastes like cheesecake!

The thing is to become creative with the foods you eat. Check out the recipe section here. There are hundreds of recipes that taste very good and are good for you! :tu: