When we’re looking to make changes to our bodies, many of us are guilty of focusing on our weight. To lose weight, we follow a simple formula of consuming fewer calories than we burn off. Unfortunately, while losing weight is achievable, many people find that after dropping a few lbs they still feel out of shape, or unhappy with how their body looks. In fact, losing weight by following a calorie deficit, without making any effort to tone up, can leave you looking further away from your dream body.
Toning your body can improve your strength, boost your heart health, improve circulation, and help you to look amazing. Here are some tips to help.
Change Your Diet
Sticking to a calorie deficit can work when it comes to weight loss, but if you want to tone up, what you are eating can be just as important as the calorie count. If you are increasing exercise, focusing on strength training, and pushing yourself harder, you’ll need to make sure you are drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated. You’ll also need to increase the protein in your diet. Protein helps you to feel full, but it also helps your muscles to recover from, and build after, exercise.
You can add protein to your diet fairly easily, by eating things like oats, eggs, chicken, yogurt, and fish, but some people also like to add a supplement, often in the form of a protein shake or bar. If you are interested in supplements, turkesterone may prove helpful in building strength and toning muscles too.
Muscle Toning isn’t Just About Weightlifting
When we think of toning muscles, our first thought is often hitting the free weights. But, while weightlifting can be beneficial, it’s certainly not the only way to tone your muscles.
You use your muscles all of the time. Cardio exercise, like running, uses your muscles. Something like swimming is a great full-body workout, and even walking can tone muscles. If you are looking to lose weight, burn fat, and build muscle, HIIT workouts can be incredibly effective.
For the best results, you should focus on a balanced training plan, with active rest days, strength training, and cardio.
Don’t Focus on Specific Areas
If you want a toned stomach, you might focus on core workouts. If you want to tone your legs, you’ll look for bodyweight exercises like lunges and get out pounding the pavements. But the best way to tone is to stop focusing on specific areas. Working out one area makes it hard to burn calories or fat and means that you aren’t using your exercise time efficiently.
Look at Your Goals
If your goal is to increase strength and fitness, then exercising to tone your muscles is a great plan. But if you want to increase the appearance of toned muscles, you might also need to look at your weight. If you have a lot of belly fat, for example, you could practice core exercises every day, and you still wouldn’t see your abs. You need to burn fat too. For this, you’ll need to reduce calories and practice cardio exercises. As much as workouts promise to “burn belly fat”, that isn’t how it works. You can target specific muscles but not fat.
Toning muscles isn’t something that happens overnight. One big workout won’t do it. You need to commit to a healthy diet, strength training, cardio exercise, and the right lifestyle. To maintain improvements, you’ll also need to keep pushing yourself, and building gradually over time. If you stop training or fail to increase the intensity, you’ll soon find that it’s much easier to lose muscle tone than to gain it.
