Beginner Exercise

I regularly do cardio everyday and then I added weight training 3 days a week. On the days I do weight training, I only do half the cardio I would normally do. It gets me warmed up so that I don't strain my muscles.

I've never heard about losing muscle from doing cardio. I know running is cardio, but I'm building muscle at the same time. Just do cardio daily and add in weights when you feel you are ready. I do 3 reps of 10 on each of the arm weight machines and 3 reps of 20 for my legs. But it is up to you how much you do.

I don't understand why people think they ought to choose between cardio and strength training. Actually if you do both, there is a synergistic fat burning effect, Don't pick one or the other. Do both!

When I was first getting started, I had not exercised on purpose for nearly two decades. I had no money for a gym membership, so I started off with the only thing I remembered from when I was young and active: calisthenics. I did jumping jacks and sit-ups and jogged in place. I finished the Couch to 5k program in September and started the Thirty Day Shred this month. Thirty day shred is cardio and strength training combined.

If you are on target with your diet, and you do both cardio and strength training, then the fat just melts away.

You need both, but humans don't need as much cardio as people think. I strength train 3x a week for 45 mins and only do cardio-specific 2x a week for 25 mins. I also walk a lot, but I don't count that as focused "on-purpose" exercise. Like everything else, putting all your eggs in one basket is foolish. Both cardio and strength are necessary for good all-around health.

Love the cardio and cannot skip a day--it makes me feel lazy, and i'm just dull!

I would say don't wait to do strength training until you've lost all your weight, because you want to preserve as much of your existing muscle as you can. I found out the hard way when I gained, lost, gained, lost with 2 pregnancies - I wasn't very muscular before, but I had looked okay. Then when got back down to my original weight I was so upset to find I was a dress size bigger and much flabbier than ever before - I had lost some of my little bit of muscle along with the fat; not a good look. Strength training reversed that; now I weight what I did pre-babies but a dress size smaller than then.

However:

I plan to start weights after I've kind of gotten used to the cardio because I really want to tone as well!

This is a smart approach. You don't need to start up everything at once and get overwhelmed.
Like you say when you are comfortable with the habit of exercising and your body has had a chance to get used to it, you can slowly add it in.

I love doing the cardio and strength... but what I do is Cardio everyday, then strength 3x a week for about 35 mins. I make sure I do the strength on Mon, Wed and Fri lol easy to remember...lol...

Now, I did just get back into the swing of things cause I haven't done it for ever!!...lol.. now I'm going to stick with it!!

I also like the elliptical, and after reading a lot of the forums, I am going to try to incorporate some of the concepts of 'High Intensity Interval Training' into my elliptical workout. As I understand it, HIIT allows you to get a better work out in a shorter amount of time, pushes your body to get stronger and fitter more than maintaining a constant speed on the elliptical or treadmill. Basically, the idea is to change up your speed, with 2-3 minutes of fairly slow, easy working out as recovery periods, interspersed with 30 sec to 1 minute intervals of high intensity when you try to make your heart explode.

As lots of people have already posted, most things I read suggest a combination of strength and cardio, doing alternate days or mixing it up. I've seen in a few places that you shouldn't really do strength every day, as you need to give your muscles time to build in the rest periods...

I'm a total newbie to all this so take what I say with a grain of salt; just wanted to share my plans, being in a similar position to you...

Congrats on your loss so far!

When I first joined my gym a year and a half ago, I started off with a pretty limited range of exercises and then slowly added a bit more by doing one new thing each week. In the beginning, I hadn't been to a gym in over 15 years and was out of breath within 5 minutes. Now, I can do 3 sets of 10 regular push ups, am run/walking 6 miles using c25k and am working my way up to pull ups. I can even bench press 110 lbs! Personally, I started with the elliptical (because it is smoother and less bounce was easier for me) and some basic calisthenics (knee push ups, lunges, etc). I started with a bit of cardio and a bit of strength on the same day because I couldn't manage that many reps or that many cardio minutes anyway. Now, I'm splitting up my days into cardio and strength because my stamina has improved.

In the beginning, i think the most important thing is to just go. So, start where you are most comfortable. If that's the eliptical, then start there. Once the habit builds, then keep adding stuff and eventually you will be bench pressing in the back with the boys!

You might also consider doing a personal training session to get started. Most gyms will give you one for free. A trainer can show you a balanced routine of things to do. If you tell the trainer you want to learn strength exercises, then you'll learn some stuff in that session that you can replicate on your own later.

Good luck. Have fun. You'll do great!