My arms are my problem area. Whenever I lose weight, the fat comes off my waist/stomach area first. Not that I'm complaining, but not having skinny arms suck! I feel so bulky.. Like a man, because of my huge arms.

I hear lifting weight helps a lot.. But how many pounds should I be lifting? And if I don't lift at all, will my arms ever slim down from just dieting alone?

You can't spot reduce. Your body will lose fat from the places it feels like losing fat.

I'm so sorry, you sound like you have my problem I've always had big arms and now that I lost weight, they have slimmed a lot, but are still bulky. I do a lot of strength training and that makes my arms look better, but they still are big .. So I really know how you feel. I would suggest not heavy weights, but lighter and high reps for toning. Good luck!

What ValRock said! Everyone has their "problem" areas. For me it's my legs, and it sucks too but the weight will have to come off eventually. Although sometimes I fear I'll be a skeleton on top with big legs haha..hopefully not. Stick with it and keep measurements.

Unfortunately as other posters have said: You can't say "alright fat from my arms, you are banished!" and wish for it to go away. It comes off when it wants to come off. Weight training will make sure that your arms look nice in the end and maybe make it so you get those nice arms a bit sooner than you would have otherwise.

I posted on my blog about this: http://healthplusfifty.wordpress.com...s-part-1-arms/ and I say that it's diet that really got me the arms, even though weight training gave me the shape.

I didn't really lose the fat in my arms until I hit the 120s! It can take a long time if you happen to store fat there.

The best luck I've had with this is a combo of pushups (I do table top since my arms are still considerably weak) and those cheap free weights you can get at Ocean State. Just pick them up and see what the heaviest but comfotable weight for you is. To me the 1-5 lbs are too light and the 10+ are too heavy, so I have 8lb weights. Then just look up some exercises or just incorporate them into any cardio you already do. I hear wrist weights are good for this too since you don't have to hold anything, but I haven't tried them out yet.

Actually you're probably better off with the heavier stuff.

sontaikle you give me hope that my arms will someday look normal! My arms are huge still compared to the rest of my body.

Yep.

Lifting 8 pound weights isn't going to "tone" anything. Heck, I bet your purse weighs more than that.

Lifting weights is really only beneficial if you CHALLENGE yourself.

Double ditto, all this!!

Lifting weights wil tone what's underneath so when the fat goes, your arms look good. I will be lifting heavy eventually and my trainer knows this! I am only at 7.5lbs on each arm and I am finding it too easy now so I believe I will be moving to 10lbs soon.

Lift heavier girls!!!

C'mon now, push yourselves!!!

You say "lift heavy", but how heavy are you supposed to lift? This is where I get confused. I do the machines because the free weights intimidate me, but I always have a hard time deciding if what I'm lifting is too easy or too heavy. I don't wanna hurt myself, but I don't want to be jipping myself either.

If you can lift it 6 times with good form. Lift it. If I can lift something 10 times with good form, it's too light.

You seriously won't get anywhere swinging 8lb. weights around.

How much you should lift depends on which exercise you're doing.

ValRock: Thank you for your response! I know at first 7.5lbs was hard for me to do 10 reps and now it is too easy. I went from a zero activity lifestyle to exercising 6 days a week so my strength is slowly increasing.