Gain weight and tone

Strength training is the most efficient route to your goal.

"Toning" is the combination of having a satisfying-to-you amount of muscle, and the right amount of body fat so that it will show off to your desired effect. (Loosely speaking, at lower body fat a person will look more "cut", at somewhat higher body fat the appearance will be smoother with some shape to the muscle areas, but too much body fat and the muscle won't show much at all or look "toned".)

Find some candidate strength training programs here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

Despite the title, it does include some bodyweight strength programs, not just weight lifting strength programs. But weight lifting is probably the most time-efficient. The "Strong Curves" program is designed for women who want more booty as well as more "toning" overall, but I'm not sure whether your goal is exactly that or not from how you phrase it.

On top of the training, get good overall nutrition, especially but not exclusively adequate protein. This is one source for an evidence-based protein goal:

https://examine.com/protein-intake-calculator/
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

In addition, you'll need a calorie surplus to gain weight. A stone (14 pounds) in 6 months would theoretically require roughly about a 275 calorie per day surplus. Given probabilities for muscle mass gain in women, you'd potentially gain some muscle and some fat at that level, but it's hard to estimate how much of each.

Best wishes!

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

“Toning” is just a matter of having low enough bodyfat to expose developed muscle. You could do a lot of squatting, goblet squats are safe, lots of direct core work and then 3 months of dieting down by not changing your training but dropping calories.

She wants to gain weight, not lose weight. I don't know how tall she is, but she weighs about 101 pounds now, shooting for around 115. ITYMTS dieting up, and increasing calories.

Congrats on the upcoming wedding.

Do you have gym access or will you be exercising at home, and if the latter then what equipment do you have access to?

For legs:

Squats: e.g. goblet squat with a dumbbell for quads and glutes.
Lunges: forward and reverse work the legs, however reverse lunges will work your hams and glutes more, and front lunges will target quads more.
Leg extension machine: for quads only.
Romanian deadlift with dumbbells or barbell: for hams and glutes (and posterior chain).
Hamstring curl machine: for hams.
Hip thrusts with barbell: for glutes.

The sweet spot is 10-20 working sets per week per body part to build muscle, while working each part at least twice per week. Warmup sets don't count. If you're new to this, start at the lower end of that volume, so that a) you don't over-train or risk injury, and b) gives room to progressive overload.

Eat at a surplus of 200-ish calories with at least 100g protein. If you feel you're adding fat, lower the surplus.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Stones are a common, standardized way of designating bodyweight in Britain (and I suspect maybe some other current/former Commonwealth countries). Usually the form is "X stones Y" where the Y is a number of pounds, but OP has used stones and tenths instead. I assume she means 7.2 stone, not 7 stone 2 pounds, not sure - but either one works out to be right around 100 pounds in this case.

Stones pops up here in posts occasionally as an alternate to pounds or kg of bodyweight.

I grew up with "stones", and now find the terminology so cumbersome. Using it also requires the majority of readers to perform a conversion just to be part of the conversation.

Quick question... If I said I wanted to go from 14 stone 4 to 12 and a half stone, how many pounds is that? It's way more confusing than just saying, I want to go from 200 to 175 pounds.

Wrt Tom's previous comment, I assume he means that bulking for a few months to gain muscle may add some fat, and it's likely she'll want to trim excess fat before wedding pics.