Advice for Toning Up

Yes, definitely start to lift more and lift heavy (safely). Putting on muscle will help you burn more fat. Beware the scales though because muscle is more dense than fat (1kg of fat takes up 3x the space that 1kg of muscle does). Start taking measurments to track your progress and get your bf% done if you can. If you start putting on muscle your scale weight loss may slow or stop but your measurements will continue to drop meaning you will fit into smaller size clothing and your body will firm up as you replace fat wil muscle. I would keep doing some cardio but depending on how much you currently do you may need to drop back or shorten the times you are doing it for. All depends on your goals really - do you want to be 125lbs and 'skinny fat' or 125lbs and lean

I am 5'2ish.
I am 133lbs.
My goal is 125lbs.

I am still doing cardio, but starting to infuse exercises to tone up (plank, lots of crunches, free weights).
Should I start lifting more? Will I still be able to lose these last 8lbs if I just start to lift? Should I continue cardio?

Thanks.

I'm on my last 10 pounds too (yay!) and I've found that doing more strength training has really helped. Even when the scale isn't moving, my cloths are fitting better and I have more energy. Believe it or not, but you can find a lot of great workouts on Pinterest that you can do at home, or bring to the gym, to get started. I've been following the toneitup.com workouts. They're in the middle of a challenge now, so they are posting daily strength workouts.

Good luck!

Yes! Lifting is a fantastic way to tone up.

If you're in a calorie deficit, you should still lose the weight but lifting is absolutely fantastic for overall inch loss which IMO is far better than a number on the scale going down!

We all lose muscle while dieting. Weight lifting (combined with adequate protein intake) while dieting helps maintain as much muscle as possible. A pound of fat takes up more volume than a half pound of fat and a half pound of muscle so you'll see more visible improvements for smaller scale movements. In addition it improves health, prevents osteoporosis in women, increases strength for practical applications, and it's fun and bad *kitten*. I think all people should lift.

Women won't gain a lot of muscle while dieting. A woman trying as hard as possible, and eating at a surplus will only gain 12lbs of muscle a year. A woman casually lifting and dieting might gain a pound if she's new to lifting, or obese. However, weight lifting might cause some increases in water retention and some swelling giving the illusion of immediate muscle gain or "bulking". Weight lifting won't slow fat loss but it might mask it with this water retention.

A calorie deficit is what drives our bodies to burn fat.

What most women want when they say "tone" is visible muscle definition. This is accomplished by maintaining muscle (weight lifting) and burning fat (calorie deficit).

Do you want to lose fat and have more muscle definition? Then lift. If you just want to lose weight, cardio. You should do some of both anyway; both will get you to goal if you eat at a deficit. But you're probably at the point where you want to look leaner in which case, start lifting.

I spend 2-3 hours in the gym every day. I do a few warm up sets of 35-50% of my 1RM, then a few sets of 60-80% of my 1RM, then I do my 1RM for as many sets as I can and try to see if I can do it more than once. If I can, I keep adding weight until failure.