Wow.. Congrats.. that is an amazing accomplishment and I hope you fufill the rest of your goal

The back of your arms are one of the most difficult areas to target. Here is an article that discusses what it is and how to reduce it.

"That underarm flab -- often referred to as bingo arms, Hi Janes and the Hadassah hang -- is certainly a common problem. It's a result of out-of-shape triceps (the muscles in the back of your upper arms) and the extra fat that for some reason likes to deposit itself there.

There are three factors to take into account: weight, body composition and muscle tone.

Weight: As you noted, when you were walking regularly, you lost 35 pounds and the problem was better. Certainly, as you renew your walking program and lose body weight, you'll see improvements.

Body composition: That's the amount of fat you have on your body in relation to the amount of muscle, water, bone and other lean tissues. Body composition is not simply a matter of weight loss. Your body stores fat in various places on your body -- in this case, on the back of your arms. Ideally, as you lose weight, you will burn off fat only and preserve as much lean body tissue as possible, thereby improving your body composition.

But unfortunately, that isn't necessarily the way it works. You always lose some combination of fat, muscle and water. The trick is to lose as much fat as you can without losing too much muscle. You can do this in two ways, by decreasing your fat intake (which is why it's important to monitor your fat intake rather than just counting calories) and by exercising to increase your lean muscle tissue. If you just diet or just exercise you could lose a lot of muscle and water along with the fat you drop. Although your scale weight will certainly take a dip, your fat-to-muscle ratio may not improve much, and you may not be happy with the results.

Muscle tone: Walking, as with most forms of exercise, will help increase your ratio of lean muscle to fat. But unfortunately, it does little to target your problem area, the backs of your arms. To do this, you need to do some exercises to firm up your triceps. Adding some tone to this area will definitely affect the jiggle factor. So here are a couple of exercises that can help:

Bench dips

Sit on the edge of your bed or a sturdy chair with your palms planted on each side of your hips and your fingers hanging over the edge. Walk your feet out a little so that your hips are off the bed; your butt should just clear the edge as you use you arms to lower yourself.
Keeping your knees bent, lower yourself until your elbows are at 90 degrees and your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Use your arms to raise yourself up and continue to raise and lower 12-15 times. Do two to three sets. As this becomes easier, do the exercise with your legs straight.
Triceps kickbacks

Use a small dumbbell or some substitute (such as a can of tomatoes or a bottle of ammonia). Bend over at the waist, resting your hand on a chair, so that your back is flat. Grasping the weight in the other hand, bring your bent elbow up to your side and keep it there. This is the start position.
Now, keeping your elbow pinned to your side, extend your arm back until the elbow is straight, then lower and repeat 12-15 times. Do two to three sets. As this gets to be too easy, increase the weight."
Liz Neporent, M.A.

Congratulations on the weightloss!! Your hair loss should be addressed. I would go to your doctor and have a physical. You may have a vitamin and mineral deficiency...Good work!!!smile

Congrats on the weight loss!!! Did you have any problems (during your diet) maintaining your nutrient and vitamin intake?

As for firming up arms here are some great ideas...
stretch bungie cords for resistance traing.

wear wrist weights and do sky lifts while watching tv..

or my favorite..
while cooking dinner, do your arm exercises using canned food as weights.

Wow Career Mom, congrats on your amazing accomplishment! As previously mentioned, however, I would definitely check out any reasons behind the hair loss - there must be something lacking that you really need. Depending on what that is, you can probably find it in a supplement.

Continued good luck from someone who's always fought with their weight!

My mom would like to lose about 30 pounds. She has trouble with her knees so even walking can be painful for her at times. So my question is did you do any walking or did you just use a diet of some sort? How many calories did you maintain? I think it is great you lost that weight congradulations to you!!

Is there anyway to go back on here and correct spelling errors!! Not that I ever have any of course..lol

Hi samantha. After you post go back and reread your answer. If there is a spelling error go back and fix it by clicking the edit/delete button on the top right. Just go back and fix it and click update. You can edit within an hour of the post.

P.S. I've edited this message 3x

If you are losing hair then there is a problem with that diet.

You say very low diet, I do not like the sound of that.

You have lost 50 lbs, now it is time to start adding calories to your diet.

I do not mean just throw in the towel and start eating anything, be selective in where those calories come from.

Go low fat low sugar. What does this mean? That means that you remove the added fats and sugars.

Added sugar is rather easy, if you are dumping sugar into your coffee in the morning, adding sugar to the things you cook, etc. Stop it, or reduce it.

Added fats are a difficult one for most people to understand.

Mayonaise, Dairy products (Milk, cream, cheese, EGGS) Cooking oils, shortenings, nuts, seeds, margarine butter - all are added fat. Just because a margarine is 'light' doesn't mean it isn't fat.

Trust me, you are getting all the fat you need from vegetables and meats naturally.

Look for foods that say low fat and fat free. That way you can cut out the fat where you don't taste it and you can use margarine or butter sparingly.

Look at cooking oil, shortening and butter/margarine. They all say that calories from fat are around 120 - for a table spoon. Now a serving of corn is 60 calories, you can have two servings of corn for the same number of calories of one table spoon of margarine - which do you think will fill you faster? The corn, more volumne for the same nuber of calories.

The flabby arms are a natural part of loosing weight and an be attended to later, the hair loss is a sign of starvation and MUST BE ATTENDED ASAP!

You must stop starving yourself right now, or you will find that your body is finding other sources for important building blocks, your muscles, your organs, YOU! This will lead to illness, long term complications, organ failure and DEATH.

Before starting any exercise routine, you need to stop starving yourself.

Child, I can not impress upon you the damage you are doing to yourself but this drastic program you are on STOP IT - it will kill you.

SEE A DOCTOR NOW!!!! that is how you must respond.

Go to a doctor, tell them what you have been doing, tell them of the hair loss.

There are many books on the subject of low fat dieting - please go to your library and read up on the subject and apply the principles in them. One book, Bodystat(resetting the body stat permanmently) by De Witt is very informative, if you can find it at your local library, read this one first. It will tell you what you are doing to yourself right now, it will tell you what you are setting yourself up for and it will tell you how to lose weight safely and sanely by going low added fat and low added sugar.

It will also address how to incorporate more exercise - not just an exercise program - but more exercise into your daily life.

See A doctor, that is most important right now.

Cheers

David <><