a little help here please

[cherrymonster]

hi, its my first time in this topic. i want to lose some weight for my holiday in 6 weeks. i also want to tone up. i am not in terrible shape, am 5foot8, and size 12 after having 5 children, but need to tone up and sort my shape out. i weigh 10 1/2 stone, and have recently given up smoking. i want to look reasonable in my bikini when i go on holiday. can anyone help me please?

If you want to go for it try some aerobic exercise 5 x per week for 30 mins,do what you will enjoy.Power walking,dancing,bike,run what ever you prefer but do get hot and slightly out of breath.combine with some tonning work.Pilates,tums and bums etc. again do what you can fit in or like.(fitness dvd)

As for eatting you are not overweight but you want to tone up and feel a bit better.I would go for 3 meals a day,no snacks except fruit or veg and drink lots of water.

If you do this for 6 weeks you will look and feel fab.

i managed to lose 3lbs by drinking more water, walking faster when i go out and not snacking between meals. i just need to get the rest off now. i have taken up jogging, which i am doing 3 times a week, currently for around 10 minutes but hoping to build that up slowly. i want to tone my stomach, but cant do stomach crunches, is there anything else i can do instead?

Build up your running by doing interval trainning.walk for 5 min
run for 5 walk for 5 run for 5 ect ect.Do a sprint sometimes and a jog other times increase your running time as the weeks pass.

Do strong pelvic tilts pulling in your tummy. Have your tummy muscles split ?

As well as running, a bit of resistance work with free weights would tone your muscles and give you a nice shape. If you can combine some of the exercises on a gym ball - the huge inflatable ones, that would work your core and sort out stomach muscles without doing crunches. Even just sitting on one to watch the telly or mumsnet would work your core a bit as you have to keep making tiny adjustments to keep your balance. You sound in great shape after 5 children and very well done on the cigs!

thanks ladies. i am going to try really hard at this, no my tummy muscles havent split, but i suffer with stomach pains sometimes so i dont want to aggravate them. i smoked for 14 years, but before that i came second in the county cross country championships when i was 14, i would like to get near that standard again, but i doslocated my knee at 14 which is why i stopped running in the first place

I'd be very careful with the running if you have an old injury, what about doing swimming as well, it's not weight bearing and will tone your muscles and burn fat without the risk of injury

i have kids at home so swimming wont work yet. i'm not running, just jogging, and so far my knee is holding up fine

I am slightly confused about the stomach pains.Are the pains in your muscles ?

no their are not muscular pains, but i dont want to overdo things and make them worse anyway.