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What's inside
This is a full 12-week gym plan for losing fat while hanging on to the muscle you already have. You will lift four times a week, and do 30-minute cardio sessions that start at three a week and build up to five.
It is written for an ordinary commercial gym, and it genuinely changes as you go. The weights go up, the rep ranges shift, and there is an easier week built in at week nine. Most plans that call themselves 12 weeks are really one week printed twelve times, and you can feel that by about week four.
Print it and take it with you, so you are never standing in the gym wondering what comes next.
The plan at a glance
| Level | Beginner to intermediate |
| Lifting days | 4 per week |
| Cardio | 3 × 30 min sessions a week, building to 5 |
| Length | 12 weeks |
| Warm-up | 5 to 10 minutes before every session |
| Rest between sets | 60 to 90 sec (accessories), 90 to 120 sec (main lifts) |
| Protein | 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg bodyweight (0.7 to 1.0 g per lb) |
| Equipment | Full commercial gym |
Brand new to lifting? Start with the female workout plan hub, get comfortable with the basics, and come back to this when you are ready.
Want it on paper? Get the free printable with all 12 weeks, every set and rep, and a log sheet to tick off at the gym.
Your weekly schedule
The plan is a 4 day upper lower split: two upper body days and two lower body and abs days, so nothing gets hammered two days running.
| Day | Session |
|---|---|
| Monday | Workout A, upper body |
| Tuesday | Workout B, lower body and abs |
| Wednesday | Rest |
| Thursday | Workout C, upper body |
| Friday | Workout D, lower body and abs |
| Saturday | Rest |
| Sunday | Rest |
Cardio can go after your lifting or on a rest day, whichever fits your week better. It really does not matter which, and there is more on that further down.
The workouts
The rep ranges below are for weeks 1 to 4. They change in weeks 5 to 8, and again in weeks 10 to 12, so check the progression table when you get there.
Workout A, upper body
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell or dumbbell bench press | 3 | 10-12 |
| Seated cable row | 3 | 10-12 |
| Lat pulldown | 3 | 10-12 |
| Dumbbell shoulder press | 3 | 10-12 |
| Dumbbell lateral raise | 2 | 12-15 |
| Cable triceps pushdown | 2 | 12-15 |
| Dumbbell curl | 2 | 12-15 |
Workout B, lower body and abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell back squat | 3 | 10-12 |
| Romanian deadlift | 3 | 10-12 |
| Leg press | 3 | 10-12 |
| Lying leg curl | 3 | 10-12 |
| Hanging knee raise | 3 | 10-15 |
| Plank | 3 | 30-45 sec |
Workout C, upper body
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Lat pulldown, wide grip (or assisted pull-up) | 3 | 10-12 |
| Incline dumbbell press | 3 | 10-12 |
| One-arm dumbbell row | 3 | 10-12 each |
| Cable face pull | 3 | 12-15 |
| Overhead dumbbell triceps extension | 2 | 12-15 |
| Cable curl | 2 | 12-15 |
Workout D, lower body and abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell hip thrust | 3 | 10-12 |
| Bulgarian split squat (or walking lunge) | 3 | 10-12 each |
| Leg extension | 3 | 12-15 |
| Seated leg curl | 3 | 12-15 |
| Standing calf raise | 3 | 12-15 |
| Cable crunch | 3 | 12-15 |
One heavy lower body lift per session, not three. Workout B is squat led and Workout D is hip led. You will not find squats, deadlifts and leg press stacked into the same hour here, because that is how people end up too sore to train on Friday.
Abs get trained twice a week, on B and D. Training them every day will not get you there any faster.
How the 12 weeks progress
This is the part most plans quietly skip. The four workouts stay the same the whole way through. What changes is how you load them.
| Weeks 1 to 4 | Weeks 5 to 8 | Week 9 | Weeks 10 to 12 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Build the base | Get stronger | Deload | Push |
| Main lifts | 3 x 10-12 | 4 x 8-10 | 2 x 10, light | 4 x 6-8 |
| Accessories | 2-3 x 12-15 | 3 x 12-15 | 2 x 12 | 3 x 10-12 |
| Effort | Leave 3 to 4 reps in the tank | Leave 2 to 3 | Easy | Leave 1 to 2 |
| Rest, main lifts | 90 sec | 90 to 120 sec | As needed | 2 min |
Main lifts are just the first two exercises of each workout. Everything after those is an accessory.
Reps in the tank means how many more reps you could have done when you stopped the set. Leaving 3 to 4 in the tank in weeks 1 to 4 means finishing a set of 10 feeling like you could have managed 13 or 14.
Week 9 is a deload, and it is not optional. A deload is a deliberately easy week. Same sessions, two sets each, at around 60% of the weight you have been using. It will feel like you are wasting a week. You are not. You are turning up to weeks 10 to 12 fresh enough to really push.
How to pick your starting weight
Honestly, nobody can hand you a number in kilos or pounds, because it depends on you and where you are starting from. There is a simple rule that works, though:
Pick a weight where the last 2 or 3 reps of a set are genuinely hard, but your form does not fall apart.
If you finish every set at the top of the rep range feeling like you had five more in you, it is too light. If your form falls apart on rep six of twelve, it is too heavy. Somewhere between those two is your weight.
When to add weight: once you hit the top of the rep range on every set, two sessions in a row, add about 2.5 kg (5 lb) on lower body lifts and 1 to 2.5 kg (2.5 to 5 lb) on upper body lifts. Drop back to the bottom of the rep range and climb again from there.
That slow climb is really the whole plan. Your sessions will look the same in week 11 as they did in week 1. The numbers on the bar should not.
Pull-up progression
Most people cannot at first, and being told to do three sets of fifteen is exactly how a plan gets abandoned in week one. Work through these steps instead:
- Lat pulldown until you can do 10 clean reps at about two-thirds of your bodyweight
- Assisted pull-up machine, reducing the assistance over the weeks
- Negatives. Jump or step to the top, then lower yourself for 3 to 5 seconds. 3 sets of 3 to 5
- Full pull-ups
Move up a step when the one you are on feels controlled, not because the calendar says you should.
Get the printable plan
Cardio
| Weeks | Sessions per week | Length each | Weekly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | 3 | 30 min | 90 min |
| 5 to 8 | 4 | 30 min | 120 min |
| 9 to 12 | 5 | 30 min | 150 min |
Just so this is completely clear, because it trips everyone up at first: that is three separate sessions of thirty minutes across the week, not ninety minutes in one go.
Moderate means you can still hold a conversation, but not comfortably. Incline walking, the bike, the rower and the stairmaster all count, so pick whichever one you do not dread. By weeks 9 to 12 you are doing 150 minutes a week, which is the bottom of the 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week that the WHO recommends for adults, alongside strength work on two or more days. This plan covers both.
Prefer something shorter and harder? HIIT works here too. Swap any steady session for a 20-minute interval session. If you are not sure what suits you, the best cardio for weight loss walks through the options.
When to do your cardio
No. It is worth clearing up, because the internet is full of this one.
You have probably read that cardio first thing in the morning, or straight after lifting, burns more fat because your body reaches for stored fat instead of carbs. It is true that you burn a slightly different fuel mix while you are training. It just does not add up to more fat lost by the end of the week.
When researchers tested exactly this in young women on a reduced-calorie diet, one group did their cardio fasted, meaning before eating anything that day, and the other ate first. Same workouts, four weeks, and both groups lost the same amount of fat. It was a small study, twenty women over four weeks, so hold it loosely, but it points the same way as everything else we have on this.
Do your cardio whenever you will actually do it. That is the part that matters.
How fast you should lose weight
Almost nobody tells you what to expect here, so you end up guessing whether any of it is working.
Aim for 0.5% to 1% of your bodyweight a week. For a 70 kg (154 lb) woman that is roughly 0.35 to 0.7 kg, or about a pound a week. If you weigh less, your number is smaller.
Aim at the slower end of that. Reviews of fat-loss phases in trained lifters recommend 0.5% to 1.0% of bodyweight per week and favour the low end of that range, because dropping faster costs you more muscle. Muscle is the whole reason you are lifting four days a week, so it is worth protecting.
Three things that are completely normal, and still make people panic:
- Weeks 1 and 2 drop fast, then it slows. The first few pounds are largely water and glycogen. The slowdown is not a stall, it is the start of the real rate.
- The scale can go up in weeks 2 and 3 if you are new to lifting. Training makes muscles hold water. It passes.
- Daily weight bounces 1 to 2 kg for no reason. Weigh most mornings, use the weekly average, ignore any single day.
A real stall is three weeks with no change in your weekly average and no change in your waist. That is the point to adjust something, not week two.
Keep an eye on four things: your weekly average weight, your waist measurement, whether the weights on the bar are going up, and how your clothes fit. If the bar is moving and your waist is shrinking, the plan is working, even in a week when the scale does not move.
Wondering how long all this actually takes? How long it takes to get toned covers what is realistic.
What to eat
Two things really matter here. Nearly everything else is noise.
Protein. Aim for 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight, which is roughly 0.7 to 1.0 g per pound. For a 70 kg woman that works out at about 110 to 155 g a day. The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position stand puts the general range at 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg/day for people who train, and notes that higher intakes help protect lean mass while you are eating in a deficit. Spread it over three to five meals instead of saving it all for dinner.
A moderate calorie deficit. Just enough to lose at the rate above, and no more than that. Crash diets cost you muscle, leave you flat in the gym, and are the reason most 12-week attempts quietly end around week five.
If counting everything is not for you, build your meals around a structured plan instead.
What does not matter
- Carb timing. Eating carbs at night does not make you store fat. Your total calorie intake across the day and the week is what decides whether you lose fat, hold steady, or gain it.
- “Metabolism-boosting” foods. None of them boost it enough to matter.
- Cutting carbs out entirely. You are lifting four times a week. Carbs fuel it.
- Weekly “cheat” days to confuse your body. Nothing you eat confuses your metabolism. A planned higher-calorie day with more carbs is still worth having, though, and for two real reasons. It tops up the muscle glycogen that weeks of dieting run down, which is the fuel your sets run on, so the next few sessions usually feel stronger. It also makes the diet easier to stick to. When resistance-trained men and women dieted for seven weeks, a two-day carbohydrate refeed each week protected more fat-free mass and kept resting metabolic rate higher than dieting straight through, although both groups lost the same amount of fat. So plan it, keep the extra calories mostly carbs, and do not turn it into an all-day free-for-all.
The 3 day version of this plan
That is common, and it is easily solved. Run the same four workouts in order, A, B, C, D, three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and pick up where you left off.
| Monday | Wednesday | Friday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | A | B | C |
| Week 2 | D | A | B |
| Week 3 | C | D | A |
| Week 4 | B | C | D |
Then it starts again. Every workout still comes round evenly, the cycle just takes a little longer. Add one extra cardio session a week to make up the difference.
Exercise swaps
| Instead of | Do |
|---|---|
| Leg press | Goblet squat or walking lunge |
| Lat pulldown | Assisted pull-up, or single-arm cable pulldown |
| Cable triceps pushdown | Overhead dumbbell extension or bench dip |
| Barbell hip thrust | Dumbbell hip thrust, or glute bridge on the floor |
| Seated leg curl | Lying leg curl or dumbbell leg curl |
| Cable crunch | Weighted decline crunch |
| Hanging knee raise | Captain’s chair, or lying leg raise |
Training at home instead? The 12-week dumbbell plan covers the same 12 weeks without a gym.
Why lifting, not just cardio
Because cardio on its own tends to take some of your muscle along with the fat.
Lifting while you are dieting is what keeps the loss coming from fat. In premenopausal women losing around 12 kg, resistance training protected their fat-free mass, which is muscle and everything else in the body that is not fat. That is the reason this is a four-day lifting plan with cardio attached, and not the other way round.
In practical terms, the same 65 kg looks very different depending on how much of it is muscle. Weight training for women goes into why in more depth.
Common questions
Do I do weights before cardio, or after? Either is fine. If lifting well is your priority, lift first, because you will have more in the tank. Otherwise, do whichever order makes you more likely to turn up.
One-arm rows. Do I finish one side, then the other? Yes. Finish all your reps on one arm, then switch. Both arms together count as one set.
The plan says 12 weeks but the workouts are a week long. Do I just repeat them? Yes, and you change the loading as you go. The progression table is what turns one week into a real 12-week plan.
Can I add an extra day? Not in the first four weeks. If you still feel like it by week 5, add a cardio session or a walk rather than a fifth day of lifting.
What if I miss a session? Do it the next day and shift the rest of the week along. Do not do two sessions in one day to catch up.
I am completely new to the gym. Is this too much? Not if you ease in. Start at the bottom of every rep range with light weights for the first two weeks and treat it as practice. Nobody cares what you lift in week one, only that the number goes up over 12 weeks.
This article is for general information and is not medical advice. If you are pregnant, have an injury, or have a medical condition, check with a doctor before starting a new training or nutrition programme.
