Got myself a gym membership

Since I moved away from home for university I lost half a stone (yey me!) intending to keep this good work up I've not joined a gym. It's an all womens gym, very nice, It has plenty of cardio machines, offers classes with my membership, all the weight machines and dumbells, no weights like bars or a bench or anything though. I've had a few personal trainer sessions, they're teaching me how to use the machines and stuff. They've got me on 12 mins fast walk on the treadmill 6.5 mph, on a 2.0 incline, then 10 mins on a bike machine, then 5 mins on the cross trainer, then i do 2 sets of 15 on every machine. I just want some advice on how to make sure I'm gettin the best work out with the equipment, what people would suggest to me if no one minds?

Very cool that you joined a gym! Exercise can get to be very fun and it helps you to become healthier. You can also meet cool people there too.

However, you should have become a member at a gym that has free weight barbell equipment IMHO. Strength training with free weights, especially compound barbell exercises (bench press, squat, deadlift, military press, barbell rows, etc) will get you the best results in the long run. It is a shame that your gym only has machines and dumbbells. Dumbbells are good, but you can only do so much with them and eventually you will wish that you had access to barbel equipment.

Ask someone at the gym to explain HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) to you. It is the best form of cardio IMO. It is extremely effective for fat loss and it really speeds up your metabolism for hours and hours after you finish. Your metabolism returns to normal a few hours after doing regular cardio. It consists of switching back and forth between 100% intensity for short durations (15-30 seconds) and slower speeds to recover. So a sample would be a 5 minute warm up, 20 seconds as fast as you can, 60 seconds slow to recover, and then continuing to switch back and forth between the 20/60's for 15 minutes. Then do a 5 minute cool down. HIIT can be done on any piece of cardio equipment.

I've got access to a barbell at home (my housemate has one and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind me using his) I'm just not entirely sure how to use it.

HIIT sounds good to me, I will definately give it a go!