I do DVDs so I don't need to strength train

I LOVELOVELOVE lifting heavy. Right now I'm nursing an injured shoulder though, and haven't been able to lift heavy for almost 3 months now. :sad: When I was, some of my exercises my trainer had me lifting so heavy I could barely do 6 reps. Others, I would go to 10, others 15. Once it becomes too light, I go up. I could tell I was getting stronger and within just a couple weeks of lifting like this, I could more easily do my regular push ups and I'd lost half an inch off my upper arms. Can't wait 'til I'm lifting heavy again! *sigh* I miss it.

What happened to your shoulder?

I have been focusing on cardio, but am aware that I really need to start strength-training if I am going to tone up the body fat that I have.

For clarity's sake... please know that you don't tone up the fat that you have with strength training. Strength training works your muscles. Fat and muscle are separate tissues. I don't want you or anyone else thinking that lifting weights turns your fa into muscle because that's not how things work.

My question is, at the moment I don't have and can't afford gym membership. Like others here, I own resistance bands (set of 5, graded from 10-50lbs resistance) and I have various workout DVDs including ChaLean Extreme. I currenlty own one teeny-tiny kBell (haha) and a set of 3 dumbells, the biggest of which is only 2.2kg. Thing is though, the bands don't feel like they really do the ChaLean workouts justice, and sometimes I find it difficult to get them in the right place to do the exercises in time.

What sort of thing can I be looking at doing at home, without having to spend a lot of money on weights?

Best bet would be to invest in adjustable dumbbells. i know most sporting good stores have them. This will help you progress to a certain point and hopefully at that point you'll be able to afford other alternative.

Heck, I've even recommended that people use gallon jugs. Fill them up to a certain point that's challenging for a given movement. As you get stronger... add.

My main problem areas are my upper arms (triceps) and stomach. I know you can't "spot reduce" fat but can you "spot tone"???

Spot reducing is the same as spot toning in my mind. Where I come from, toning isn't a verb. It's an adjective, as in toned, that describes what someone looks like when they've minimized their fat stores while ensuring the maintenance of muscle. Less fat covering an equal or even greater amount of muscle gives you that shaped look.

But if you're asking if you can target certain muscles with weights... you certainly can. You could target your tricep muscles (the ones on the back of your arms) with things like bench press, skull crushers. pressdowns, close grip pushups, dips, etc. And if you progressively overload them, they'll respond. But that's not going to have a significant impact on the fat that's covering them.

One point you make above is that certain exercises will make the muscles respond but won't have a significant effect on the fat that covers them. What would?

A calorie deficit.

Which comes from controlled intake paired with reasonable amounts of structured exercise.

The deficit taps into the stored energy (fat), and the strength training influences the quality of weight loss by helping promote muscle maintenance while being in said deficit.

To expand a bit, let's look at what maintenance calories really means and go from there...

The body is in a constant flux of building up and breaking down. The maintenance level is the amount of energy it takes to fuel the building up so that it balances out the breaking down. This is vastly oversimplified, of course, but sufficient for the conversation.

At any rate, maintenance assumes that you have exactly enough energy to support all the energy you're expending in a given day (basal metabolism, activity, and digestion/utilization of food). Conservation of energy and all that good stuff that you never paid attention to in physics class, haha... energy output = energy input, so there's no net change to the system. Weight stays the same.

When you're eating under maintenance, you're providing less energy than is required to maintain that balance. The body needs that energy, so it gets it from the only choice it has: the existing tissues. In a perfect world, this is fat. In the real world, it's fat and muscle (another reason high protein is important while dieting).

In terms of energy requirements, muscle building is a very intensive process. Heck, even maintaining muscle is metabolically costly relative to fat. When your body is short-changed on energy, especially when you're relatively lean already, your body's starvation avoidance systems help to shed muscle.

Your body sees muscle as a wasteful resource (beyond the bare bones minimum) and fat as an energy depot to help ensure survival during times of energy shortfalls.

All of this to make the point that in order to give you best chances of reaching your goal physique, you need to let the deficit take care of the fat loss, which will occur in a genetically predetermined pattern.... and let the strength training take care of the muscle.

Does that clear things up at all?

Yes, it certainly makes sense.

Good.

How I apply it to me is where I struggle a bit. Currently my calorie goal here is set to 1460 (this follows something you posted in another thread, I think it was about "frantic to adhere to the right calorie intake?". I worked out the calculation you had there for roughly what I wanted to do at the time, which was lose 20lbs. Initially my calories were set by MFP to the world-wide 1200 so I have upped them a little from the initial goal. I also eat most of my exercise calories back, where I can (not always possible if I do a run at night) which I know is a massive debate in and of itself.

Now I'm on the "home stretch" as such; I've remained consistently at the same point now for approx 6-8 weeks, and although I have lost 20lbs, my muscle definition is sadly lacking, if that's the right term - not sure what is. "Skinny fat" comes to mind as the best description probably!!

I want to lose/reduce fat while maintaining the muscle I already have. I am assuming that with 14-1500 cals there is still a deficit built in so presumably I don't need to reduce that back down again - so that cover the last thing you mention - "let the deficit take care of the fat".

This is how I go about calories.

I set maintenance at 14-16 calories per pound. Most tend to start most women or people who've already lost a considerable amount of weight at 14 and most men and highly active people at 16. Of course there are always those outliers who seem to have a sluggish metabolism or seem to be mostly sedentary... and in those cases, I might slide the entire spectrum down slightly, to say, 12-14 cals/lb. On the other side of the fence, there are always those who seem to be gifted in the metabolism department or they're highly highly active and I might slide their maintenance spectrum up to 16-18.

It all depends on the individual and circumstances.... but it's just a starting point anyhow... so not all that important. It's how they adapt their approach according to what's happening in response to the starting point that is important.

Once a reasonable estimate has been made about maintenance, I subtract 25-35% from it to reach a daily calorie target. There are cases where I'll go above or below this range... but by and large this is the range I work with. I'll typically hover on the lower end of that range for lighter folks and the higher end of the range for heavier folks.

With this method, you don't have to worry about eating exercise calories back or not. Here's why...

The 14-16 calories per pound for maintenance assumes the person is exercising most days of the week. So exercise calories are already factored in. Meaning anything below this maintenance intake should be a "raw" deficit... meaning it doesn't need any manipulation. It's net, in other words.

Make sense?

In the meantime I would say that currently virtually all my excercise (running, biking, horseriding) is cardio-based and I do no resistance training of any type - through a combination of (a) being clueless and (b) lack of equipment/money. I know I should be doing it, I just don't know quite how and what.... d'oh!

Here's a resource you might consider checking out:

http://www.amazon.com/Mens-Health-Home-Workout-Bible/dp/1579546579

But look... start with some basic movements using solely your body weight where you're focusing more on form/execution than anything else. Do this for a few weeks until you're 100% comfortable with each movement. Then you can start loading the movements with whatever your have available... dumbbells, bands, gallon jogs, babies, books, or whatever!

From there though, progression of the load is very important. Which is why asking if "8 lb dumbbells is enough" is sort of silly. They're enough for right now, maybe. But your body will grow accustomed to this load and at that point will stop responding to it.

You could do something as simple as:

Body weight squats 3x15
Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts - 2x8 each leg
Pullups or assisted pullups - 3x12 (pullup bars are cheap and easy to install)
Pushups or modified pushups - 3x12

You could throw some accessory stuff in at the end for your core, arms and shoulders if you'd like, but it's really not necessary.

On another day you could simply repeat that workout or you could do something like:

Hip Thrusts
Reverse Lunges
Inverted Rows
Pushups or modified pushups

Using the same sets and reps as above.

You really have to get created when you're limited to little to no tools (DBs, bars, weight plates, benches, racks, etc).

Here are some videos of the exercises I listed above:

Squats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9W2jnmUXdo

Single Leg Romanian Deads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqj_m8J2vw

Assisted Pullups and Pushups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-mGDKS-13c

Or you could do the basic modified pushup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpj_hL_m0tA

Or you could do eccentric/jump pullups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrZ2P2XoSNA

Hip Thrusts: http://www.youtube.com/user/bretcontreras1#p/u/60/4w9JN9XRc_c (with this you could simply lean back against a low table - you'd need to put a towel under you for padding - or you could even lay back against a chair. You could eventually load the movement by putting weights on your waist area... books, dumbbells, or whatever)

Reverse Lunge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqpYfzQvsdI

Inverted Rows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYUxXMGVuuU

For more advanced folks, you can check my buddy's (Bret Contreras) video out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQYukgzj_kU

Realize that all the exercises Bret demonstrates in that video can be progressively loaded.

You are hopefully getting the idea here. And don't think of the above as a rigid program... it's just a quick example of what can be done. There are many ways of structuring things.

Once you graduate to "real" weights, I'd suggest reading through Mark Rippetoe's books titled Practical Programming and Starting Strength.

For the record... a beginner program for one of my clients coming to my gym might be as simple as this:

Squat
Bench Press
Deadlift
Pullups

Start with the bar, do 5-8 reps. Add 5-10 lbs. Repeat. Do this for a total of 4-6 sets for each exercise. Workout over.

Do this for a few weeks, or even months if the progress keeps up. Try to beat your weights each time. You can start adding some variety then, maybe this:

Workout A

Squat
Bench Press
Barbell Row
Dips

Workout B

Front Squat
Military Press
Deadlift
Pullups

Alternate between those 2-3 times a week, stick to sets of 5 on the barbell lifts and do 4-6 sets. You can do higher rep stuff on the dips and pullups. I'll also throw in some accessory stuff here and there for single limb work, core, and arms.

This is how I go about calories.

I set maintenance at 14-16 calories per pound. Most tend to start most women or people who've already lost a considerable amount of weight at 14 and most men and highly active people at 16. Of course there are always those outliers who seem to have a sluggish metabolism or seem to be mostly sedentary... and in those cases, I might slide the entire spectrum down slightly, to say, 12-14 cals/lb. On the other side of the fence, there are always those who seem to be gifted in the metabolism department or they're highly highly active and I might slide their maintenance spectrum up to 16-18.

It all depends on the individual and circumstances.... but it's just a starting point anyhow... so not all that important. It's how they adapt their approach according to what's happening in response to the starting point that is important.

Once a reasonable estimate has been made about maintenance, I subtract 25-35% from it to reach a daily calorie target. There are cases where I'll go above or below this range... but by and large this is the range I work with. I'll typically hover on the lower end of that range for lighter folks and the higher end of the range for heavier folks.

With this method, you don't have to worry about eating exercise calories back or not. Here's why...

The 14-16 calories per pound for maintenance assumes the person is exercising most days of the week. So exercise calories are already factored in. Meaning anything below this maintenance intake should be a "raw" deficit... meaning it doesn't need any manipulation. It's net, in other words.

Make sense?