Bad. That sounds like too much, too long, and too much cardio.

This will drop your metabolic rate, and screw you for the next 20 years. This is what I'm recovering from NOW. I'm twice your age, and it took me until I was almost 40 to figure out what I WISH I had known before I got up to 170 pounds.

The real secret to fixing your metabolism and staying lean is VERY well kept: weightlifting. Have a peek in my gallery. I'm actually TRYING to get bigger muscles now, because I like it, but look at how NOT very big I am even with all this effort.

And you can have a look at the first page of my gym log to see me in my "fat pants" that I wore when I was running 10k three times a week if you want further evidence.

Working out smarter is the trick. And it's not even all that hard to do.

No offence but i do not want muscles like that...ill stick to my cardio and toning.thanx tho...and i do not want to weight lift...i cant see myself doing it....i dont want muscles like that...but u look great!

No, that actually wasn't my point. I just wanted to let you know that even REALLY TRYING to, there is a limit to how muscular you could get. I got this way ON PURPOSE. And even so, I wear a size 4.

There is no such thing as toning. And straight cardio with dieting will only lead you to a metabolic roller-coaster where you'll continue to struggle and get fatter and fatter. I did this. I was doing cardio classes every weekday in my 20s, with low calorie diets. I jogged for 6 years in my thirties. I got fatter and fatter. It's only been through lifting that I've gotten leaner. And you DON'T need to go as heavy as I do. You'll get a LOT leaner if you do both lifting and cardio than you ever will doing just cardio.

I have no reason to lie to you. But I've gone down this road before. I read your posts, and I remember my early 20s when my OWN nightmare began.

You can change this. And you don't need to "bulk up" like I'm doing in order to achieve this. I only do it now because I really like the look and I like to eat. But if you do some focussed resistance work IN ADDITION to some focussed cardio, your body will look great and STAY looking great. You'll NEVER run into the problems so many of us here have had to work their way out of.

And please, no more than 4 hours of cardio a week, and no more than one hour of it in a day. You'll just get injured and sick, and then you won't be ABLE to train.

Built...did you leave?

Im going to do cardio, and i also do a 30 min circut training...and i run on the treadmill.....why is that so bad?...so your saying the only way to loose weight is to weight lift?...that cant be true...ive seen results from cardio and running on a treadmill?

I have found for me to tone is through Yoga. It's great because even though I am a larger woman I have definition and tone and it's the type I like very lean not bulky. It is wonderful for the relaxation and stress release as well.
Good luck luvley just try different things until you find that works for you!

Oh, no, that's not what I said.

Cardio burns fat. It also burns muscle. That's the problem. You WILL lose WEIGHT doing just cardio. But you'll lose muscle, and that's the part that keeps your metabolism humming along. You don't need to pack on a TON of muscle, but you want to do enough resistance work to make your body feel firmer and to KEEP the muscle you already have. That way when you've lost the weight you want, it STAYS off.

Make better sense now?

And if you do more than an hour of exercise in a day, you stimulate this funky hormone called cortisol. Cortisol eats through muscle tissure. So you start getting injured and sick, and flabby. You might notice you start to get a little gut (ever see a middle aged man out jogging, with skinny legs and a gut? that's cortisol in action).

But...

Say you lift weights for half an hour three times a week. Not super heavy, but enough to challenge your muscles a bit. THEN after you lift (not before, you won't burn enough fat if you do cardio before) you can do half an hour of whatever cardio you like.

You won't develop bulky muscles, but you'll protect the ones you have, you'll burn off MORE fat than you would have if you only did cardio for the hour, and... no cortisol problem.

How is cardio exercise and toning bad and how does it make u fatter?

I think we posted at the same time.

Toning isn't bad. It's just that there's really no such thing. Read my earier post and see if that helps it make better sense to you.

so what kind of weights..the weights u use in both of arms or bench weights!....

You might mean dumbbells?

I have my first lifting programme listed on the first page of my journal, as well as something that tells why you should only do weights before cardio, and not the other way around (burns more fat). Read it, and take from it anything that might suit you.

Then have a look at the first page of my gym log. You'll see just how heavy I have to lift to look the way I do. It will NOT happen to you by accident, so you don't have to worry about that part. And no offence at all - I really LIKE having control over what my body looks like. It took me until I was almost 40 to figure out how to do it, but it's an ENOURMOUS relief to have a closet full of clothes that fit me, and not have to worry that I'll have to starve myself to still fit into my fall skirts from last year. Really, I'm still getting over the thrill of that one!

Good luck sweetie. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

how long did it take u to loose when you strted workin out?..and are u on the low carb diet also?>

I was 170 pounds at 5'8" when I started Atkins. The fatter you are, the better Atkins works for you. I lost 25 pounds in about 8-10 months, I think, and I was lifting weights all through this. I didn't put on all that much size in that first year of lifting, but I figure I probably put on about 8-10 pounds of muscle, which means I really lost about 35 pounds of fat.

And I EAT. A lot.

I carb-cycle now. I realize you aren't interested in becoming a bodybuilder, don't worry. You don't have to in order to tone it down and take advantage of the tricks. I eat more carbs during the times when I'm lifting heavier weights, and lower carbs for the weeks where I'm doing more fat-burning stuff, like HIIT and certain types of lifting. But even on my higher carb days, I don't eat as much carb as "normal" people do. Like I said, I know what to do to work WITH my body now. I sure could have used knowing what to do at 20 - I'm STILL trying to undo the damage to my body caused by 20 years of low cal and cardio and yoyo weight gain and loss - fatty pockets, varicose veins... Yuck, hey?

Well i want to loose 10-12 lbs i want to back down to 107 even 105!?...im not sure how to do it?

Well, 6 small meals a day is a VERY good start. About the same number of grams of protein as you want to weigh, or just under. So, for you, about 100g a day. This is about 15g of protein per "meal". So, one meal could be two hard boiled eggs. Or a half cup of cottage cheese. I do a lot of cottage cheese - it's cheap, it's good quality protein, and it takes a while to digest, so you don't get hungry after you eat it. Avoid whey for now - it might make you hungrier. Have this protein with some veggie, and it's a meal.

For example, half cup cottage cheese, couple of nuts.

Or

2 hard boiled eggs, celery, mayo or blue cheese dressing.

Eating this way speeds up your metabolism, and is very healthy because you never feel really hungry so you won't just cave and cheat on crap and feel guilty about it later.

The other part is resistance exercise, and cardio.

I haven't tried it, but I've heard very good things about Pilates. You might try that if weights isn't your gig. But weights are a really fast and easy way to do it.

Good luck!