I'm in the process of losing weight. I've lost about 40lbs and have about 60 to go (I haven't weighed myself in 2 weeks so I'm hoping it's actually 45 lost, 55 more to go).

Here's my current exercise schedule below. I exercise at home, I have a weight bench w/ bar, curl bar, adjustable hand weights, lots of weights to go on all of these. I don't have a personal trainer, but I've done a good amount of research and I came up with this plan on my own

Day 1- 45-60 minutes on the treadmill... as intense as I can handle it.
Day 2- Upper body strength & core (curls, bench press, boxer w/ hand weights, dumbbell flys, dumbbell hammer curls, dumbbell lateral raises, dumbbell pullovers, modified push ups, dumbbell shrugs, crunches, crunch w/ twist, dumbbell side bends, modified plank.... basically two exercises for each muscle... bicep, chest, upper back, shoulders, tricep, lat, abs, obliques... upper and core).... I do two sets 12 of each. I mix in cardio by doing 2 strength exercises then 5 minutes on the treadmill and continue to do so until all exercises are done.
Day 3- 45-60 minutes on the treadmill
Day 4- Lower body strength & core (Superman pose, squats, forward lunges, lying abduction, lying adduction, calf raises, single calf raises, lateral lunges, and I use the leg part of my weight bench to do leg raises and I also lay on my stomach and do I guess what you'd call a reverse leg curl??, bridge ups {core}, hip flexor, reverse crunch).... I do all of these in intervals like with the upper strength.
Day 5- 45-60 minutes on the treadmill
Day 6- repeat upper body
Day 7- DAY OFF
Day 8- 45-60 minutes on the treadmill
Day 9- repeat lower body
Day 10- treadmill.... repeat the cycle.

The cycle goes- cardio, strength, cardio, strength, cardio, strength, day off, repeat.

Now.... I'm thinking about adding in the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred video... BUT my concern is this- the exercises are only 30 minutes long and apparently doing two back to back is near impossible for people who aren't absolutely fit. Is high intensity exercise that's done for less minutes just as good, not as good, or better than exercise that is a bit milder but done for longer amounts of time?? I'm just worried about only working out for 30 minutes and being too pooped to continue doing something else. I'm worried I won't burn as many calories or that it may be a less effective exercise than what I already do.

Please critique my exercise plan. I'd love some input. I'm also interested in hearing what you think about the Jillian Michaels video.

Originally Posted by stellar1216

Now.... I'm thinking about adding in the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred video... BUT my concern is this- the exercises are only 30 minutes long and apparently doing two back to back is near impossible for people who aren't absolutely fit. Is high intensity exercise that's done for less minutes just as good, not as good, or better than exercise that is a bit milder but done for longer amounts of time?? I'm just worried about only working out for 30 minutes and being too pooped to continue doing something else. I'm worried I won't burn as many calories or that it may be a less effective exercise than what I already do.

Personally I think that what you're doing is a little excessive (and I hope that you didn't just start into that from scratch, because you DO need to BUILD up to things) and if done for long periods of time if you're not used to it can lead to overtraining. Also, if you've been doing that regime for quite a while you DO need to change it up a bit to get better progress.

I would actually suggest either:

Option A
Day 1 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 2 - Lower Body 40 min
Day 3 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 4 - Upper Body 40 min
Day 5 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 6 - Day OFF
Day 7 - Full-Body 30-40 min OR Day OFF

Option B
Day 1 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 2 - Lower Body 40 min
Day 3 - Day OFF
Day 4 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 5 - Upper Body 40 min
Day 6 - HIT 12-20 min
Day 7 - Day OFF

Even having TWO days off (Option A), to give your body a chance to rest, since it WILL work very hard during HIT. And with the HIT start off with only 12 minutes and then work up to 20 minutes over a period of months. You could also do do Full-Body sessions (Option B), instead of lower and upper.

And IMO, yes, higher intensity exercise for less time is far MORE EFFECTIVE than long slow intensity. I explain this in my link provided re "diet" (it actually contains training information as well), but Layne Norton actually explains this very well:

Originally Posted by Layne Norton

..."Low-Intensity vs High-Intensity" cardio. Many people automatically assume that low-intensity cardio is better; citing that high-intensity cardio primarily utilizes glucose (anaerobic metabolism), while low-intensity cardio primarily burns fat (aerobic metabolism).

Once again, the substrate used during cardiovascular work is not as important as the caloric deficit created by the cardiovascular work. In actuality, high-intensity cardiovascular work is superior to low-intensity cardio for several reasons

High intensity cardio has a much stronger effect on GLUT-4 translocation in muscle cells due to the increased force of muscle contraction. This means that high-intensity cardio creates a much stronger nutrient partitioning effect towards muscle tissue than low-intensity cardio.

Low periods of low-intensity exercise tend to "overtrain" the fast-twitch muscle fibers and convert the intermediate muscle fibers to slow-twitch fibers. This is not a desirable effect as the fast twitch muscle fibers are those that have the greatest chance to hypertrophy. If your body has less fast twitch fibers, then you will experience less hypertrophy from training.

The body's hormonal response to high intensity cardio is similar to the body's hormonal response to resistance training (i.e. increased insulin sensitivity, gh release, Igf-1 release, etc) without placing the same strain on the nervous system as resistance training.

High-intensity cardio causes the body to preferentially store more carbohydrates and burn more fat.

High-intensity cardiovascular exercise increases oxygen expenditure and forces the body to adapt by becoming more efficient at oxygen transport (increase in VO2 max). More efficient oxygen transport to the muscles will increase fat oxidation as fat oxidation is dependant upon the presence of oxygen.

High-intensity cardio seems to be more muscle sparing. Several studies have shown that high-intensity interval training (aka HIT) burns less calories when compared to continuous lower intensity cardio. However, the skinfold losses were greater with the HIT group than in the continuous intensity group. This means not only did the HIT group lose more fat, they also spared more muscle tissue by burning less overall calories .

...

In conclusion, I suggest performing HIT cardiovascular work on their off days only...

You DON'T need to do back-to-back exercise sessions to get results.

I suggest that you actually get a personal trainer to help you achieve your goals re exercise.

As for the MOST important part of losing fat, DIET: I suggest that you read post #4 at New to forum, need advice....trying to lose weight....