in search of some major advice!

I'm in desperate need to lose 10-15 pounds, lean my muscle, and shed fat off of my bootay and thighs before i start school. which luckily is about five months away. but nonetheless i've been trying for two months and haven't lost a thing. so i'm a bit worried. 

i am 18 years old, 5'2", weigh 125 and am a "pear" shape. i work out six days a week, i'm just not sure exactly what exercises i should aim for or stay away from. weights i should be lifting, and number of reps.. ya know all that jazz. 

I eat fairly healthy, especially for my age. i'm not sure how many calories i should be aiming for. i usually go for 1300 to 1500.. which i think is high, but it's what i've heard. so i play off that. i try and get a decent amount of protein as well through out the day. i cave at night sometimes, or pretty often, which is definitely my weakness and i need to dedicate myself to stop.. i know that'll help. but it shouldn't be the one thing that is hindering me from losing weight. at least i hope not! 

after reading so many articles, and researching constantly, i think i'd know exactly what i need. but in reality i think i've just sort of confused my brain, and need it flat out told to me ha. so pleeeeeease if you can help me in anyway, i will be forever grateful! thank you so so much!

Hi bringbckgumby! School sounds like a great motivator! I'm actually new on this site and am going back to school this Sept. too. I'm just about your height at 5' 3/4" haha and started my program at about 124.5 lbs.

I started slow and kept increasing workouts but here's what I do every week: I workout 5-6 days a week with cardio each day for 20-30 mins (depends on what other things I'll be doing within that workout). I alternate between running and being on the elliptical during the week. I found that it's easiest to work your way up speed wise when your running. I started around 3 or 3.5 mph and am now at 4.5 mph. After cardio I actually found the CORE Secrets dvds really fun and effective. There are a bunch of different workouts so you can change up which one you want to do everyday (always keeping your body guessing). Some are 43 minutes long and others are quick 25 mintues, but all work all your muscles and include weights. I love them because I wanted to tone up but didn't want to have lift a ton of weights with my husband and in a couple months my arms are A LOT stronger.

Remember, anything you do will help so if you feel like just doing crunches or push ups, go for it! Something else that might be helpful is what I call "AB CAMP".  You can get someone to help you or power it out on your own but it basically consists of a series of challenging ab moves. You can do standard crunches, leg lifts (lay on your back and lift your legs straight up so that your butt lifts off the ground a little), throw downs, where you lift your legs up and someone is behind you pushing you legs back to the ground, side sit-ups, standard sit-ups and basically any type of ab exercises you feel makes you work.

When it comes to calorie counting, I started limiting myself to 1400 for a month or so and then went down to 1200-1300. You don't want to go lower than 1200 since that's the min. your body needs to function properly. I say experiment a little and see where your comfortable. You don't want to be hungry all the time, but you don't want to work against yourself by consuming more than you're burning that day.

I hope this helps and stay in touch and stay motivated! It's hard to stay with it and don't worry, everyone indulges at night sometimes, just in moderation ;)! I've lost about 8 1/2 lbs so far so it works! Good luck!

Thanks!

It's nice to hear success from someone on the same page as me. :)

My workouts during the week are two days a week i take a kick class, which is an hour long. Four days a week i run about two miles, walk one, then do a half hour of eliptical. so i do an hour of cardio. i usually run a steady 5.5-6.5 and sprint a 7.5. i also on some of those days take a class called centergy, or tai chi. For awhile i was doin the machines, focusing only on my legs. i'd lift easy like 30-70 and try and do 50 reps.. my abs are in pretty good shape actually. i have a small upper half. just my lower feels uneven to what i've got goin on ha. but i'll definitely play around with some of those ab exercises. they sound pretty good! 

My plan for the month of august is to first plan out each day the meals i'll eat. so my calories won't vary and i won't have room to eat late at night and indulge. i'm also going to try and force myself to go to bed early so i won't have the cravings. right now being a late teen i stay up pretty late. I'm also going to try and up how far i run. If i can do four miles a day that'd be good. and i'm going to try and add more yoga and pilates to see if it will help lean my muscle. that's my plan.. i hope it'll work. thank you soooo so much for your advice! it means a ton!

Best of luck to you as well!