Your goal, to lose weight. Your solution, reading while on a treadmill or reading while doing the elliptical and reading while riding the bike on the lowest level. Let me give you a scenario:

The other day, I walked in on my roommate who happened to be on my exercise bike. He was playing the playstation while, slowwwly pedaling away. Later that day, he came to me and asked why he hadn't lost any weight? My reaction,"Ummm...??" Exactly, I didn't know what to say. Earlier that day, I'd saw him playing a video game while doing cardio. "What's wrong with this picture?" His heart rate couldn't have been 10 points above resting!

Are you one of those people that do something I mentioned in the above? Are you curious as to why you're not losing weight? Well, I have 3 possible solutions for you!

1) Caloric deficit and diet

Here's the obvious, you need to burn more calories than you take in. There are a 100 methods you can use to calculate this. Personally, I'm not a calorie counter but, I'm not going to give you some method to calculate the "PERFECT" caloric requirements for you. What I will say is this, "Your diet must change!" It's really that simple and you need to eat WHOLE FOOD. Now, I'm also not going to tackle a precise diet here but, I will say one thing though, It should consist mostly of whole foods. Example: lean meats, complex carbohydrates, and vegetables and some fruit. Remember you should be eating around every 3 hours (INCLUDING BREAKFAST). You're meals should be slightly smaller than normal. This means you could very well be consuming the same amount of calories, but more spread out during the day. That means you get a constant flow of nutrients for your body throughout the day.

2) Cardio

Say you do one of the types of cardio I mentioned above. If you are one of those people that pace themselves for 30, 45 or even 60 minutes on a machine and wonder why you're not losing weight, here's your answer:

If you're morbidly obese and get tired after walking for 10 minutes you will be doing yourself a great deal of good by pacing yourself, but why? Think about this, you're doing cardiovascular exercises and you're trying to elevate your heart rate. If you aren't sweating or breathing a little hard, you are NOT elevating your heart rate enough to do jack. Instead of spending an hour doing cardio, "UP YOUR INTENSITY!" Do sprinting paces mixed with jogging paces and if you can read while you're doing cardio, "YOU ARE NOT DOING CARDIO." Now I will say this, at first you can go a little slower, but when things seem a little easier, "UP THE INTENSITY!" You have to push yourself to see results! When you're done with cardio, you should be breathing hard (pre cool down) and sweating. I don't care if you don't sweat, "YOU BETTER BE SWEATING YOUR ASS OFF!"

Have you ever tried solving a puzzle? Once you solve a puzzle, it gets a little easier the next time. The more practice it takes, the less time you'll spend doing the puzzle. This is kind of like when you do any type of exercise (CARDIO included). Your body gets used to the stimulus and it doesn't feel like it has to adapt, so it doesn't. Hence that results in you burning less calories because your body knows what to expect. Change things up and it doesn't matter how.

One day use a bike, one day run around the track, one day walk at an incline, one day use the eliptical. I'm not saying you have to do something different every day, but at the minimum changes the speeds, times, and types of exercises every couple of weeks.

3) Weight training

When overweight people only do cardio to drop fat, it is very possible for them to lose the weight. Usually when this happens, they get what a lot of us like to call the "skinny fat". Sure, you've lost the weight but, you're still worried because there is no definition. You've still got fat and no muscle underneath to give you some shape. That's one of the MANY reasons I always recommend weight training in addition to cardio and a proper diet.

Another major reason you should weight train if you are trying to better your physique is that more lean muscle means a higher metabolism. That in turn, means you'll be burning more calories while you're sitting on your butt. That's a good thing! No, you don't get bulky just from lifting weights. People that look "jacked," spend a lot of time on their diet and weight training regime. It's not easy and doesn't happen just because you work out and eat moderately healthy. It is typically a carefully planned endeavor, so in the end you're burning calories while lifting weights and more so even after your done. Because at the end of the day (figuratively speaking) you'll have more muscle and a higher metabolism. You'll be skyrocketing your fat burning potential.