New To Working Out in General- Question about Weights

1st: You will not build significant muscle mass unless you make it your goal to build muscle mass and follow a strict exercise program and diet designed to build mass. Eating a calorie deficit necessary to lose weight will never allow your body to build muscle mass. Women who lift look like women. The female body builders with men's physiques have gone to drastic lengths to get there, it can't happen by accident.

2nd: You can't spot-reduce. Doing crunches will not burn the fat on your belly. Your body is going to pull energy from the fat it wants to first. Every body is different, and each body has a place(s) that it prefers to burn fat from first. If you want a flat belly, you just have to burn fat until your body decides to burn belly fat. Some people are lucky, and belly fat burns off first. Other people get chicken arms and legs before their body goes after the belly.

Final: Any workout you can do and stick with is better than no workout. I don't think highly of Zumba, but it's miles better than sitting on the couch. Do what you can stick with until you develop the habit of exercising regularly. Hopefully, you will work up to more effective exercises. Don't want to lift? You don't have to, but the only reason not to is personal preference. The thing you need in whatever exercise you do is intensity. Whatever you do, do it with as much intensity as you can.

Start lifting ASAP. The heavier the better. Preserve the muscle mass you have now, so you don't end up skinny-fat later on with no muscle mass. Please see this thread about why women don't look like they are "built like men" after lifting heavy weights: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1096001-halp-heavy-lifting-made-me-supah-bulky?page=16

You will not build any significant amount muscle mass while eating at a deficit and lifting weights, you'll simply preserve what you've already got (this is good! You want to keep your muscle mass!).

Look into a beginner's full body strength program for some more reading. Stronglifts 5x5, New Rules of Lifting for Women, Starting Strength.

^Also, I agree with what Citizen said.

I, however, am afraid that all of my under arm flab will transfer to muscle mass that I do not want.

That's not how it works....

I would also not recommend lifting light weights for tons of reps every day...that's almost pointless and there are much better ways to train for muscular endurance (which is what that would be doing). I would personally recommend looking into something like New Rules of Lifting for Women or Strong Curves as general fitness lifting programs that are pretty darned good. If you want to get really strong I would recommend Starting Strength or Strong Lifts 5x5.

Either way, I recommend doing an actual routine that has been properly programmed to allow for optimal results. In either case, you aren't going to "bulk" on a bunch of muscle...if it was that easy, pretty much every guy on the planet would be jacked. It's hard for guys to bulk on muscle...it is about 10x harder for women. To boot, it requires a calorie surplus...you aren't bulking on heaps of muscle in an energy deficit.

I also recommend this as a pretty good motivational read....

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/

I'm currently doing All-pro weightlifting programme....its amazing so far.

There is almost no chance that you will look manly by lifting weights, Your friend is correct that weights are a good thing, they are actually a great thing. However you do not want to continue with small weights, you want to progressively increase the weights you are lifting. Most start out lifting smaller weights or just body weight and increase from there.

A good rule is if you can do an exercise more then 15 reps, then the weight is too light. Go heavier. You want to struggle and keep proper form for no more then those 15 reps
Those that lift heavy use the maximum of 8 reps as a bench marker.

You can find programs to follow from bodybuilding.com plus others I mention later.

Calorie deficit for weight loss, cardio and weight lifting are for fitness. Also patience is key and you may not see huge results for many weeks.

There are several reasons to lift weights or do strength training.
1. Keep the muscle and strength you do have while in a calorie deficit, otherwise you may lose what you do have.

2. Increase your strength. There will be no muscle gain while in a calorie deficit, you may see temporary mass increase due to water and glucose for muscle repair.

3. Doing weights helps with bone density and can offset osteoporosis, having stronger muscles can help with maintaining joint health and keep you healthy and keep pain away.

4. Muscle is more dense then fat, so same weight but looks like less. The more muscle you have increases your daily calorie burn.

5. A lot of the compound lifts and other strength training exercises work your core. No need to do a million useless situps.

6. There are many other reasons, those are the only ones I can think of. Try New Rules of Lifting for Women, starting strength, convict conditioning, strong lifts etc. I have also attached some links of ladies who lift heavy, you can see that none of them are bulky or manly.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1161603-so-you-want-a-nice-stomach

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1096001-halp-heavy-lifting-made-me-supah-bulky

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/987513-lifting-is-the-most-horrible-thing-to-a-woman-since-twiggy?hl=twiggy


Edited to add: I see I am late in the game to add some of my advice. You have received a lot of great advice so far

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