Strength training when what?

You can do strength training at any point you feel up to it.

May I suggest ChaLEAN Extreme by Beacbody- the makers of P90X. Its basically a strength training boot camp.

I would say, pretty much any time. When I did this previously (lost 25 pounds) I had access to a gym. They had a machine sort of like the BowFlex. I did about 15 minutes or so on this. It works all my upper body muscles. If you don't have access to a gym or can't go, try some free weights. They are a couple of bucks at walmart of Target and just start doing some presses or biscept curls. Any little bit helps!

I really like the strength workouts that Women's Health Magazine has on their wesite. When doing strength I try to avoid the weight machines and go for moves that hit more than one muscle group.

Each week I find 6 new exercises. I'll do the first three follwed by jump roping for a minute then repeat up to four times. Then do the same with the next three exercises. Hope that makes sense.

I just try to recycle the exercises once I've gotten them down and worked on it for a few weeks so that I keep things fresh, don't get bored and don't end up working the same muscles all the time.

Good luck!

Wow. It's pretty cool that as a female you are not afraid of strength training. My wife and my friends who are female are in the "no way no how" mindset as it pertains to strength training.

I yo-yo'ed in my wight A LOT until I finally resigned myself into strength training - my trainer who I see once a week finally beat it into me to strength train more and do cardio less. The drawback is, the weight falls off a little slower until about day 90, but after that your body kicks into high gear and starts to shred weight. And because of the strength training building some lean muscle, the weight takes a lot longer to come back on. I took a month off for injury and actually continued to lose weight instead of gain it.

I go to the gym 3x a week for 1 hour. I usually do 30-40 minutes strength training and 20-30 minutes of cardio (in that order). My trainer was showing me studies where doing cardio after strength training actually was more productive. I'm there no more than an hour. Then I try to sneak in one odd day of just cardio.

If you have a gym and are a little nervous - stick to the machines until you are comfortable with free weights. It will also help you hold your form.

If you don't want the gym, there is a lot you can do with exercise balls, resistance bands, and free-weights at home.

If you need exercise help, like getting a routine - there are a lot of workout planners online. Just do a search.

Good luck!

I want muscles too. I don't want to look like a stick. I want to be define and lean. There is a big dif between that and bulky. Naturally women don't normally tend to get bulky anyhow unless taking testosterone. I want to be cut!!

For your arms, specifically underneath - read up on the net "Tricep extentions". You will see all sorts of variations from freeweights, to resistance bands, to machines. I would reccomend also doing some sort of "Bicep Curl" also.

As for the legs, lunges and squats works a lot of key leg muscles from your butt to your knee. I wouldn't target a specific area so much on legs, work the whole thing. Then add on "Calf Raises".

But if you hit the gym, I suggest working the whole body - because if you build more muscle overall, the more calories you burn sitting. So building leg mucle, abs, or back muscle, will also help you burn fat in your problem area's.

I go 3x a week and work something like this:
- (Day 1) Chest, Triceps, Shoulders (ex: Incline Bench Press [Machine], Tricep Ext, Lat Raise)
- (Day 2) Back, Biceps, and Abs (ex: Lat Pulldown [Macine], Bicep Curl [Machine], Crunches)
- (Day 3) Legs (Leg Press [Machine], Leg Curl [Machine], Calf Raise)
- (Day 4, If I can fit in) 1-2mi Walk around neighborhood, or Cardio at Gym.

I don't spend longer than an hour at the gym - I do 30 minutes weights and switch to 30 minutes cardio. Start small, do a single exercise (3 Sets of 12) for each area. After 3 weeks, move to 2 exercises per area. What I have listed above is something similar to what I started out with. Stay light at first, at the very begining you shouldn't be straining at the first set, should be feeling it second set, and not really complete the third. You should be a little sore the next day or two.

As for when to start, I was roughly 238lb (now 199). If you are unsure if it will cause you harm, talk to your doctor before you start. I saw him and explained I was about to start dieting and exercise - we talked about safe calorie intake and he had me do a heart stress test just to be sure (because of my history).

But you don't necessarily need to wait to a specific weight.