You can also do a three day "split" (M/Tues/Fri) for an hour/90 minutes. This gives your body a chance to rest and rebuild muscle. The lifting will keep your metabolism up along with a good diet.
Strength lifting is moderately heavy weights for 4 sets of 10 reps (or abit lower reps) with a minute's rest between each set. Be sure to stretch and warmup first.
Thanks for your reply. I am currently doing moderate weights with high reps, m/w/f but I am not seeing the toning I want. Plus after a day off I lose motivation, if I do something everyday it becomes part of my rountine and it comes naturally. So I hoped that i could lift everyday, with out doing damage. I am asking because I have read the muscles need time to repair but I wondered if that was more for heavy lifting.
thanks
You might want to increase the weight and do lower reps to see some muscle tone. You will not get bulky if you move away from the little weights. If you can do "high reps", (ie. 15+ reps) then you are using a light weight. Keep it to a range of 3 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise, meaning that doing more reps than that is difficult or impossible. If you do light weight - high rep, it is more of an aerobic activity and will burn more calories/fat, but won't do much for actual muscle tone.
You cannot work the muscles every day. Well, you can, but if you don't allow a day for recovery, you will *lose* muscle, and that's contradictory to your goals. If you need to maintain a daily routine, use "off" days to do cardio. Keeps you in the groove without sacrificing your progress.
__________________
Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins
The time you take depends on how many exercises you are doing. 5 minutes would only allow for 2 or 3 sets of one exercise, with no warmups, stretches or cool down, which to most people is not strength training. For a weight training session, an hour is usually the norm, depending on your goals and the exercises you are doing. For strength training, with longer breaks between sets, it may take you 60 to 90 minutes for a routine, for routines with shorter breaks between sets it may take 45 to 60 minutes. My sessions, usually 5-7 exercises (depending on the routine), 3 sets of 10-12 reps with warmup and a cool down (sometimes a short cardio) session, usually take me an hour.
Re: strength training-how often? 
