Who Has Great Arms?

Do you have access to a heavy bag? If you do, I highly recommend boxing! I started doing that awhile ago and my arms are much more thinner and toned!

Contrary to the way of 1980's exercise, it has been proven that "spot toning" does not work.
The best way to lose weight is cardiovascular activity at least 4 times a week for about 30 min a day.
Reducing the amount of carbs and sugar you eat and increasing fruits and veggies and lean protein can help drop the flab from all over the body.

Your weights can be used to increase the muscle mass in your arms, and muscle mass anywhere will burn more calories, even at rest, than having flabby arms.
If there is a gym or fitness trainer near you, it would be worth your while to spend 2 - 3 sessions with them learning the correct way to use your weights.

I am glad to hear you have healthy goals in mind and wish you LOTS of luck and stick with it!!!

By far, the most excellent exercise for your triceps (and overall arms in general) is the dip. They are HARD. And you will be sore at first. But they work and they work pretty fast. Add some push-ups (even if you just do them against the wall instead of on the floor) and you will be rockin' tighter arms in a week.
Most people recommend doing dips at home by using a chair to sit in and then sliding down off the front into a dip. But what I have found works the best for me, is the side of the bathtub. Keep one leg/knee in a 90 degree angle and let your other leg slide out loosely in front of you and slide across the floor as you dip up and down. (wearing a sock helps it slide with no friction). It maximizes the weight your arms are using during the dip. Just slip off the front of the tub and dip. Using a chair is always awkward for me, b/c I never feel like the chair is a comfortable width, and if I don't grip the corners of the seat, I feel unstable. Using the bathtub I can put my hands at whatever width I want to, and I KNOW it isn't going anywhere. :)

Concentrated exercises build, strengthen and tone muscle, but can't cause you to lose fat in isolated areas. So just keep in mind that your arms will tone faster than they will slim. It isn't quite the same thing, so don't get discouraged. Happy waving !

Push ups--no weights needed, and they are good for abs/core too if you do them right.

Overhead shoulder press--get some cardio by doing them with squats or lunges

Triceps! A lot of arm flab appears behind the triceps. Stand or sit upright and lift one dumbbell up&down behind your head OR lay on your back on a bench or exercise ball and do tricep press or "skull crushers", you can alternate with chest press or fly's while you're already on your back.

alternate contrasting muscle groups, like biceps and triceps, for 2 or 3 sets, then move on to the next pair of exercises.

If arms are your focus, commit to doing 5-10 minutes of arms 5 days a week. if you can't get to the gym or do it continuously, then break it up--it still counts! (That's what I did with my abs after having a baby,6 days/week and it worked!)

Spot training won't get rid of the flab BUT working specifically on the biceps, triceps, and deltoids will tone and strengthen the muscles giving them a more firm cut appearance.

Make sure you are lifting heavy enough so that when you get to the last rep in your set, it is difficult to do (this is called failure). If every rep is easy, then you're not 'overloading' the muscle and growth does not happen. Don't worry about lifting so heavy that you'll get big huge man arms; women do not possess the testosterone necessary to create the big guns like guys have.

Biceps: bicep curls, hammer curls, preacher curls, concentration curls, pullups, inverted row (bicep exercises are a 'pull' exercise, so any exercise where you are pulling something toward your body works the biceps)

Triceps: tricep extension, tricep kickback, tricep pressdown, dips, pushups (tricep exercises are a 'push' exercise)

deltoids/shoulders: anterior raise, lateral raise, shoulder press, empty soup cans (hold arms straight out in front with thumbs up like holding a soup can and twist wrists to the inside as if to empty the cans), truck drivers (hold a weight plate in front of you like the steering wheel of a car and 'drive' back and forth)

You can use your own body weight, cans, your kids' toys, resistance bands, dumbbells, barbells, anything.

Most folks go for the biceps but your triceps are the longer muscle/more important to tone for great arms. I found that lying on my back, weights by my ears/lifting up (kind of like a backwards bicep curl) worked very well. Go girl :-)

Push ups are nice and old fashioned and work (you can start on your knees). One thing I really liked doing (before my kids popped my stability ball) was lying face-up on the ball with my back in the middle and feet on the floor and using hand weights to push up, then rotate my arms to bring them back down and up again. (So, my elbows might start at my sides and the weights at my shoulders, push up, then bring them back down rotated so the weights are turned and my elbows are perpendicular to my body.) I also like using a therapy band for "rowing" exercises, and you can do a lot of other exercises with that.

I really like the 10 Minute Solutions DVDs and they each have 5 different self-contained workouts, so you can customize it according to the time you have, but the ones I have target your whole body, including arms, very nicely. I also like www.shape.com and subscribe to their magazine. They have a lot of good specific exercises for women's bodies on their website. I also check out www.womenshealthmag.com for exercises. Have fun!! I can't wait to start working out hard again! :)

(Oh, and Michelle C's answer for over the head is also great on the ball--stability balls are just awesome in general--and chair dips can work your triceps nicely, too.)

Yoga! I have an MTV Yoga DVD that is really good. My arms get really sore, shoulders, triceps, and biceps from doing lots of downward facing dogs and chattarunga (don't think that's spelled right). It's also fast paced so your heart gets racing. I seriously notice improvement within a few weeks :)

Good luck!

push ups! practice over and over, as much as you can, the old school push ups. it isn't fun, but it has toned my arms real nicely.

off course there are a million other moves to do (which helped me).

here are some good ones on this site (this one in particular is good for the flabby tris)
http://www.all-about-arm-exercises.com/triceps-exercises....

Why don't you get one of those adjustable ankle/wrist weights. I have a pair of those and I used to walk on the treadmill or jog with this weights on and my arms were getting in shape in no time, of course that I got pregnant pretty soon after that and I kind of stopped, but once I have my little pumpkin I am planning on using them again.