What 'Toning Up' Really Means

A toned look means you are firmer to touch. If you were toned and pinched say your arm, you would only be able to pinch the skin and a bit of fat. If you weren't toned, you'd be able to pinch a lot more than just your skin. That being said, how toned you look depends on how much body fat you have. What many females don't realise is that it is possible to be skinny and not toned, i.e skinny-fat. So its not just about the size, but also the quality.

This guy is skinny fat

To lower your body fat level, you need to burn more calories than you are consuming. This is what is known as a calorie deficit. This means because your body cannot get all the energy it needs from the food you're eating, it will have no choice but to take energy from your body fat. This doesn't mean you can eat nothing and expect all your bodyfat to disappear either. Its a gradual process.

If you don't exercise and try to lose bodyfat purely from dieting, then you have to be careful about what you eat, and worry about how many calories you're consuming. Honestly that's no fun, and not many people succeed when purely on a diet. So the other factor that is in our control is exercise. It is easier to create a calorie deficit from exercise, because when you exercise, you burn calories. Frequent exercise will also take some of the pressure off from diet, in that you don't have to be anal about what you eat (unless you want to go down to really low bodyfat levels like for a bodybuilding contest). The most extreme example I can think of is Michael Phelps.

An example of what Michael Phelps eats in a day:

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

Michael Phelps

How is it that someone who consumes 10000 calories a day (from food like chocolate, pasta and pizza) can stay so lean? He trains for 5 to 6 hours a day, 6 days a week that's how. Since we aren't professional athletes like Michael Phelps, we obviously have to be more careful about what we eat.

Anyway for any girls reading this, they might be thinking 'but I've gone to the gym to exercise but still didn't get any results'. Chances are you went to the gym and went on the treadmill or stationary bike for an hour (known as steady state cardio), or you did some curls with the pink dumbbells then did a lot of crunches or situps. The problem with steady state cardio is that due to its low intensity, you only burn calories during the activity. So once you stop, you're no longer burning calories. The problem with doing endless crunches is that that's not the way to get rid of the belly fat, the correct way is to lower your body fat levels.

Doing crunches for an hour is a waste of time

The higher your metabolism, the easier it is to lose fat. How do you increase your metabolism then? By building more muscle. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism, the easier it is to lose fat. A lot of females will freak out from this idea, but that's because they think that they will end up looking like gigantic hulks with arms bigger than the men around them. It is impossible for a female to look like that unless they take steroids, because their body just doesn't produce enough testosterone naturally.

Impossible to look like this without steroids

Below are pictures of more realistic physiques that female can achieve.

Even still, a lot of the above women are professional athletes so most females won't achieve the same level of muscularity as them. But I was just proving that having muscle won't make females massive and scary.

So how does one train with a high enough intensity so that they can build muscle? Below is a simple program females can follow:

Session A

Squat 5 x 5

Bench Press 5 x 5

Row 5 x 5

Cycling

Session B

Squat 5 x 5

Overhead Press 5 x 5

Deadlift 1 x 5

Cycling

If you're too weak to use even the empty 20kg barbell for the bench press and overhead press, you can use those lighter barbells that you see people always curling with (you may need someone to help get the barbell into the correct position), or you can use dumbbells. For the squat and deadlift, there's no excuse you have to use a barbell. Be sure to research on the correct technique for these exercises before attempting them (feel free to ask me any questions in the comments section). The 5x5 or 1x5 that you see do not include the warmup sets, but if you're starting out with the empty bar, just do that for 5x5 (or 1x5 depending on the exercise). If you successful get all the reps by yourself, increase the weight for next time. Take small weight jumps.

Why am I recommending this for females? If you get stronger, you will build more muscle, thus improving your metabolism and ability to lose fat. Why are there no situps or crunches? Because when you perform the compound lifts, you need to breath into your diaphragm (think about breathing into your stomach) for more stability, which will allow you to brace your abs hard. This is enough ab work that a beginner will need.

As for the cycling, I don't mean sit on a stationary bike reading a magazine for an hour. This should last around 10 minutes tops. What you want to do is first warm up for 5 minutes, then set the resistance to a level that is moderately hard, then cycle hard all-out for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds (cycling slowly and catching your breath), then cycle all-out for 20 seconds again then rest for 10 seconds (cycling slowly and catching your breath), etc until you have done this eight times. Finally, cool down for 2 minutes. This is known as Tabata training which is intense, but it will do wonders for your metabolism. However, when first starting out its best to cycle at a moderately fast pace for 10 minutes for the first week or so just to get your heart and lungs used to this.

Why is this better than cycling at a comfortable pace for an hour? Because in the 10 minutes you are cycling, you are doing intense work. This will raise your metabolism, so once you stop exercising, you will still continue to burn calories afterwards. Sounds better than cycling for an hour to me. If you have a heart condition it's probably best not to do the Tabata training.

Read the site below for more information on this:

http://www.tabataprotocol.com/

Basically you want to build up to your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age), and once you do reach it, next time increase the cycling resistance and build your way up again. You don't have to reach your maximum heart rate every time, you just want to build up to it say every 2 or 3 cycling sessions.

This program sounds like hard work, and it is. But hard work brings results. Take photos and measurements every fortnight to track your progress. I will be honest there are different ways of achieving the results you want, but through hard work and consistency you will get there. The more you put in, the more you will get out. The next post will cover diet.

One last thing, if you are going to the gym for the first time don't bother with the personal trainers, or you run the risk of them making you do stupid exercises like this:

Dumb and Dumber

Sources:
http://www.tabataprotocol.com/
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/08/13/the-michael-phelps-diet-dont-try-it-at-home/
http://www.muscleprodigy.com/michael-phelps-workout-and-diet-arcl-1142.html