So, my best friend's getting married in November, and our bridesmaid dresses are leaning towards sleeveless/strapless. The dresses we are looking at are gorgeous, however, they also show off my batwings for the whole world to see. I know that some of the upper arm swing is from loose skin. In 10 months, I've lost about 3-4 inches of fat from my upper arms. Now, I would like to get them a little more toned.

My exercise routine includes 60 minutes of cardio, 4 days a week. I don't do any strength training, because the machines at the gym scare me. At home, I also have resistance bands and 5 pound hand weights. I don't use those, either, because I just don't know where to begin.

Any advice would be super-appreciated!

Dont let the machines at the gym intimadate you. They are not as hard as they look. Ask someone there to show you how to use them, that is what they are there for. I have a friend who is a trainer and she tells me to use low weights and high reps. So I would do at least 15 reps with low weight. She said this will tone and not bulk you up. I was seeing really good results doing this and I need to start again..

First, congratulations on your loss to date and by Nov. you will be at goal weight and looking MARVELOUS. So no one will be looking at your "batwings". I was at a wedding not too long ago and the bridesmaids had strapless dresses but one had a matching shawl. She was a little larger so I thought maybe that was why but at the reception it became obvious---she had tatoos COVERING her back.

I would recommend 30DS using your arm weights. Check out part 1 for starters. It is actually 20 minutes of resistance and cardio but it's quick and it's definitely helping me tone.

Get yourself over to the weight lifting thread and pay attention to what those ladies say, cause they're genius! Basically anything Mel or Meg says is gospel.

Since adding weight lifting to my routine, I've lost from a size 18/20 to a size 8/10, and that's been since October 2009. In four months. Really.

And I've made this progress by cutting back on my cardio time, and adding strength training. Instead of walking the 60-90 minutes that I'd been doing for 2 years, I started running. I started out running 60 seconds, the walking 2 minutes, for 30 minutes. Every week I increased my running time, decreased my walking time, until I can run 3 miles in 34 minutes. If you don't want to run, you can achieve the same thing but using inclines on a treadmill.

As for the strength training, you should check out a book called Body for Life, by Bill Phillips. There are other books/programs out there, of course, but I've been following this program and can testify that the results are dramatic. I'm on week 6, and yesterday I walked around my office demanding that my co-workers check out my biceps. For the first time in my life, I actually have definition, instead of squishy arms. I think part of the reason I'm succeeding this time is that I've given up the girly weights. Before starting this I couldn't lift my 5 pound dumbbells easily. I just bought new weights yesterday that are 15lbs each, and have no problem lifting them over my head for 12 reps. Sorry about the novel length post, but the progress I'm making has me trying to convert everyone.

Yep, that's a great program too. I've loaned mine to a friend who needed to get back in shape before her daughter's wedding, and she's made great progress.