Do rest days make you tone faster?

[cookie90]

I'm going travelling in 5 weeks and have decided to step up my exercise to tone up and lose weight before I go. I have already been dieting for 15 weeks and have lost 32lbs so far so diet is fine. I have been doing some exercise so far, running maybe a couple of times a week or doing aerobics and some toning, but its been quite sporadic.

I'm thinking of running at least twice a day, (I'm following the couch to 5k runnning plan so jogging and walking in intervals) and doing abs, legs and arms exercises from a dvd everyday. Also have a pilates dvd which I plan to alternate with the toning. I thought I'd have one day where I don't do the running but do aerobics and toning and just do a long walk one day.

Would it be more beneficial and make me tone faster if I had more rest days or is it fine to do as much as I can? I will be careful not to over exercise and burn out though.

 

[tic]

Congradulation on losing over 2 lbs a week. Two pounds is the ideal weight lost. I am not sure if pushing your excercise routine more will be very benefitial. With that said though: how much do you weigh, height, BMI, and bodyfat. I mean if you are 150 lbs, keep losing 2 lbs a week is great but if you are 300 lbs, then you can push harder to lose more than that a week.

 

[stangelj]

Upping your exercise program to what you've suggested will definitely help. You'll just need to make sure you have enough energy to sustain it given your very successful diet. You really don't need rest days for cardio, but at the same time you don't want to injure your knees for example by overdoing it, so walking on some days is a good idea. Sounds like you already know to listen to your body here. For your strength training you want at least 48 hours of rest in between training the same muscle group again.

Also, it sounds like you're only doing arms, legs and abs for the strength training. You should really round this out to hit the rest of your body such as chest, back, shoulders, etc...