losing inches vs. losing weight?

I go to the YMCA 5 days a week and work with a trainers close supervision I do strength training 3 days a week and an hour and a half of cardio 2 days a week the 3 I do strength training I only lost 20 lbs in a year and a half but.....................I lost 8 inches on my waist. Muscle burns fat and resculpts its self. I use a ARC trainer to slim down the hips and butt and let me tell you I love it and it works!!!!! Good luck and be patient with your body slow and steady loose win the race and makes for lasting weight loss

I find when the scale doesn't move (and I am behaving ) then I'm usually dropping inches. It's usually best to do a combination of strength training and cardio. You can do all the strength training you want but if you don't have the cardio to go with it, then you won't "See" results (as they are hidden under a layer of adipose tissue).

And Unfortunately, you can't "spot train". Most people have a pre-programmed way that they lose.

Hope this helps! Good Luck!

what causes you to lose inches over weight? Does strength training make you lose more inches (look "leaner and more fit") and cardio make you lose the fat (the weight)? Obviously I want both, so will just doing cardio make me lose inches and weight, or do I need to incorporate some sort of strength training in that? And what can I do to lose inches in my hips?????

Do both. There's some great circuit training options that utilize strength while also doing cardio. Jillian Michaels is the popular one right now if you want somewhat light and I think P90X does both - but you need equipment for that. You've pretty much got it right on target: strength=muscle=lean (inches), cardio=heartrate/caloric burn=weight loss. Muscle does burn more cals fast than fatty tissue and you can actually end up weighing more but being a smaller size depending on your current weight.

Fat does NOT weight more than muscle.. but a pound of fat takes up more space than a pound of muscle and of course... jiggles. Plus, being a woman, you want some strength training for you bones to decrease chances of osteoperosis as it increases bone density. :-)

Hope all this helps.

Taking measurements is very important for one major reason...at times when you feel as though you've hit a weight loss plateau, that isn't exactly the case. When you increase your lean muscle mass, you may find from time to time that your weight on the scale weighs the same. However, this is because you may have build some lean muscle and dropped some body fat. You are smaller because muscle is more dense than fat...a pound of it takes up less space in your body than a pound of fat. So, more muscle, less fat, you may stay the same weight but be smaller in size. Was a very important lesson for me to learn in my 3rd round of P90X...I only lost 6 pounds on the scale, but I dropped almost 2 pant's sizes (hurray!)