I’m often asked the question, “What should I do at the gym to lose weight?” I always find this question interesting, because there are so many options.

Personally, I feel the best way to lose weight is through the food you eat. It is extremely difficult to lose weight when you have a bad diet, please keep that in mind.

The simple math, is you must expend more calories than you consume.

If you’re doing that in your current diet, you wont need to add any additional exercise to your current routine (daily life) to lose weight.

There are 3500 calories in 1 pound of fat.

What does this mean? It’s simple, if every day you burn 100 more calories than you eat, you will lose 1 pound of fat in 35 days.

If you’re not interested in changing your diet at all, and you really just want to know how to lose weight through a lot of hard work, read on.

The benefits of working out, are infinite, but to really see them, it takes commitment. I dislike being asked about the gym by someone who I know isn’t serious about exercising, and will at most go once every other month.

You can’t lose weight by going to the gym once every other month. It takes time, and hard work.

My routine is currently 4 days a week, at anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours per gym session (depending on what I’m trying to accomplish).

So, your first step should be creating a schedule. This will help you become committed. Rather than asking yourself everyday, “do I have time to get to the gym today?” you’ll know how to plan the rest of your schedule around the gym.

For example, if I had a meeting a 2 PM, a doctors appointment at 11AM and I had to drop off some dry cleaning and run some errands, I would also say to myself, I have to go the gym at 5PM, this means its something I’m obligated to do, not something I’ll do if I have time for.

Contrary to popular belief, there is essentially always time to exercise.

I always hear people say they are too busy to exercise, this just means they’re not managing their time effectively.

Ok, now that you have a schedule you need to determine your exact goals, for this article, we’ll assume you’re trying to lose weight, and tone some muscle in the process.

I would try to run every day, which I plan on exercising prior to eating, this way I’m burning straight fat, rather than whatever I had consumed that day.

After a quick run, I would do my workout, in circuit training fashion. This means, after completing one set, I would move on to my next exercise, rather then waiting for my next set. This will keep my heart rate up, burning more calories, and getting a better overall workout with higher intensity.

I would also ensure that each exercise I do was of high reps. This means (if I was doing 3 sets) my first set would be 18 reps (of the highest weight I can do for 18 reps), my second set would be 15 reps (of the highest weight I can do for 15 reps) and my final set would be 12 reps (of the highest weight I can do for 12 reps).

These high reps and intensity would once again burn more calories than strength training would, and would lead to a more toned and athletic body. Its also important to remember that, the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is, this means your BMR (basal metabolic rate - the rate of your metabolism at rest) will be burning even more calories, making your weight even easier to maintain in the future.

After completing all my exercises, I would run for another 10-15 minutes, and then do abs.

Please remember, you can’t make fat disappear over one part of your body.

These are the steps I would take to lose weight, although in my opinion weight loss starts in the diet.