Cardio With Weight Training

Losing fat is called a cutting pahse
getting muscle is called bulking
with that said you need to gain some muscle and go into a bulking phase before you cut, so when you do cut fat it will show muscle.
Sounds like you are overtraining too. You wont see anything if you dont let muscles rest. What is your workout consist of? What are your stats? Do you want to gain muscle, if so how much? What does your diet look like? Your not giving enough information for any answers. In order to get any information that you are lookng for you have to give a backround and answer all those questions.

Basically, i'm in the gym everyday for a different muscle group - I usually (right now because my heal time is relatively slow) don't lift the same muscle twice in 1 week, nor would I ever lift it while sore. For example, monday, my chest day, I do 3-4 sets of flat dumbell press - recently progressing at 55 - 70 - 80 -90 (work to failure). I do flys with a pec deck, incline press. So all in all, i'm usually doing about 12 sets for my chest, and other muscle groups are similar. My days include chest, tris, back, bis, shoulders and forearms, and legs. I might put two muscle groups into one day if I workout on sunday, in case I miss a day. I normally do 20 minutes of cardio on my lighter days, (ie: triceps, biceps, and shoulders).

My diet is wierd. I am constantly label watching, protein hunting, etc. In the mornings, i'll usually have dannon fruit on the bottom yogurt, possibly a low sugar cereal bar, and a banana and a small glass of oj. For lunch, I go to subway and get a footlong sub on wheat with chicken breast, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a little honey mustard. In the afternoon, i'll eat some utz fat-free pretzels and a banana, and for dinner, it varies but I usually have chicken or fish - sometimes beef, but that's not often. I drink a good amount of skim milk - usually for dinner. Sometimes I treat myself to a slice or two of pizza on the weekends :d

i have lost about 15 pounds in a month by switching to this lifestyle, and I enjoy it. However, i'm always interested to hear different opinions on improvement, etc.

You are overtraining your muscles. Cut down to a 5 day split. You dont need to have bis and tris for there own day. Youll overwork them. Have a split like:
monday- chest
tuesday-back
wendesday-off
thursday-arms (biceps, triceps, forearms)
friday- legs
saturday- shoulders
sunday- off
this is much more effective and will not overtrain your body to a point where working out does harm.
Now the reps you are doing is a bad pyramid. A pyramid is where you progressivly go up in weight and down in reps. What you are dong now is too much. Make sure when you up your weight you lower your reps. A typical pyramid is 12, 10, 8, 6. For example
12 reps- act as a warm up to get you going
10 reps- stat getting into it, you could do 12-14 if you wanted
8 reps- you could do 9 or 10 if you pushed yourself
6 reps- your 6th rep should be to failure
only go to failure on your 6th rep.
You should have about 4-5 excercises for large muscle like chest, back, legs shoulders. Do about 4 for tricpes, and 3 for biceps and forearms.

As for your goals. It sounds like to me you want to lose weight and get some muscle or get cut. If this is true then you cant build muscle and loose weight at the same time. In order to gain muscle you need to bulk. Which is eat a lot, and lift like the split above. You will gain fat with muscle but the main point is to get some muscle, so then you can do what is called cutting. Cutting is mainly dieting off the fat you gained while bulking. This way when you cut your fat you have muscle that will show.

This goes into your diet. You need to start eating. Thats what it comes down to. You need to bulk, get some muscle so you need to just eat. Eat healthy, protien, carbs, veggies, but a lot. Then when you gain muscle you can go on your diet and cut the fat you gained so you have muscle to show when you lose the fat. It sounds like your diet is good, so make sure you know that when you gain some muscle and bulk.
As any questions if your not sure of anything.

That was really great advice - I appreciate the time you put into your response. A couple of questions though:

1. I am trying to lose fat now. Is it not possible to cut now and bulk after? Why do suggest the other way around?

2. Is doing a back/bis/forearms, chest/tris, shoulders, and legs as effective as the workout you suggest?

Thanks again!

Geoff

Bulking would be better to do now rather then cutting so then you can gain muscle so when you do cut you have muscle defintion that shows. If you cut now you will want to have bulked before because you will just look skinny, and not fit. You wont have muscle defintion to show if you cut now. Bulk up gain some muscle, then you can cut so you have some muscle that will show. Youll regret it if you cut now, cause youll want to end up bulking when you see yourself.

Is this what you were saying on the workout you posted.
Back/bis/forearms
chest/tris
shoulders
legs
so its in 4 days?

If you want a 4 day split then you are pretty close. I would recomend this
back/bis
chest/tris
shoulders/forearms
legs

a 4 day split will give you the same results as a 5 day split. The main thing is what type of excercises you are dong and your diet so you dont overwork your muscles. It would be best to give a days rest inbetween each day. Its ok if you dont, but that would be better.

Your goal is to "trim fat" as you said. There is no need to bulk first... It is unnecessary for your specific goal. Although others would cycle bulking / cutting throughout the year (i.E. Bodybuilders). For you, you just want to lean out and bring your definition through, possibly firm up a bit. In which case, you're doing the right thing.

Your current workout split is fine. Keep your biceps and triceps on separate days for proper muscle growth as they're antagonist muscles. If you ever do want to superset or combine muscle groups use a primary and secondary muscle. (i.E. Chest & triceps). Triceps is called a stabalizer muscle in chest exercises. So do your chest first, triceps after. But as I said, your current workout split looks good. You're doing 4 sets including warmup, 3 different exercises per muscle group. This is definately not over training. You might want to do your forearms on your bicep days instead though.

The only things I would recommend is to eat more meals throughout the day. Everytime you eat a meal your metabolism increases. When you're on an empty stomach your body goes into reserve mode and shuts down. This does not mean to eat more. Eat the same amount as you currently are, just break it up throughout the day.

You've lost 15lb with your current regimen. Obviously you're doing something right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

P.S. If you tell me your age, height, and bodyfat, I will calculate your target heart rate for optimal fat loss.