How to "tone up" - 3 steps to creating a toned physique
When we ask potential clients what their goal is, one of the most common responses is that they’d like to:
“Tone up”
As the conversation develops, it often becomes clear that most people aren’t entirely sure what’s involved in creating a toned physique.
So in today’s article we’re going to explore how to achieve that goal.
What does it mean to tone up?
“Toning up” can go by different names. Such as:
“Creating definition”
Or
“Creating shape”
If you picture a body that is toned, defined and well shaped… what does it look like?
It’s likely that they don’t have much body fat… and they also have visible muscle definition.
So…
If your goal is to tone up, then you’re looking for a combination these 2 things.
Toning Up = Less Fat + Increased or Maintained Muscle
The “muscle” element of toning up is where most people fail to put enough emphasis.
And this is generally the barrier that prevents many people from achieving the toned physique of their dreams.
The question that arises then, is:
“how do we drop body fat whilst building or maintaining muscle?”
We’re going to take a look at 3 key elements that MUST be present in somebody’s life if they’re trying to tone up.
3 Factors to tone up
1. Calorie deficit
The first thing we need to do, is put our body into a state where it’s going to start reducing our mass.
To do that, we must create a calorie deficit.
This can be done by:
- reducing the calories we consume through food / drink.
- increasing the amount of calories we burn in a day. (ep. 25)
Or usually a combination of both!
Once we’ve created that deficit of energy… Our body will have to recover that energy from somewhere.
So it will start to metabolise our body fat and muscle mass to bridge the energy gap we’ve created.
However…
If the body is losing an even rate of fat and muscle, we may start to see the scale go down, we may also start to be smaller, perhaps our clothes will fit slightly better.
But our composition will remain the same.
Although we’re smaller, we will look pretty similar because our ratio of fat / muscle will be the same. There will just less of each.
So….
How do we signal to the body that we specifically want it to burn fat as fuel, and leave the muscle alone?!
2. High Protein + Resistance Training
We do that by Resistance training and eating a high protein diet.
Resistance training will put muscles under load and tension.
This is the signal to your body that you need to keep as much muscle as possible.
When this is coupled with high protein intake our muscles are able to fully recover and repair.
The combination of a calorie deficit, high protein diet and resistance training will put is in a position to specifically focus on decreasing body fat.
This means we will start to see a shift in our composition.
Body fat levels will be going down and muscle mass will be being maintained.
So our fat / muscle ratio will be more favourable and we’ll be creating that toned physique.
There is also an added bonus to eating more protein and resistance training.
It actually makes our calorie deficit easier to sustain!
A high protein diet will help you to feel full, which means it’s easier to adhere to a lower calorie target because we’re not getting as hungry.
Resistance training will also increase our metabolism, which will help burn more calories at rest … again helping us to more easily maintain our calorie deficit.
3. Recovery & Sleep
We also have to mention sleep and recovery.
Sleep will underpin any successful transformation.
Studies show that when we aren’t getting adequate sleep, our ability to lose body fat is diminished.
We also won’t be fully recovering from our workouts.
And it’s much harder to adhere to your calorie targets because a lack of sleep can affect our appetite signalling.
For those reasons, we need to prioritise sleep in order to get the best possible results!
How to STAY toned!
After a few weeks of sustaining a calorie deficit. Resistance training. Eating a high protein diet and getting high quality sleep.
We should be starting to tone up!
But at some point, we will have to adjust our strategy.
We can’t just continue to lower calories forever.
So what do we do?
We will at some point have to increase our calories and focus on improving our muscle mass and strength.
With this calorie increase, we may start to lose a bit of definition for a while.
But, this can be to a controlled level.
We then rinse and repeat this process, each time having better muscle definition and looking more and more toned!
Summary…
We must always be focusing on sleep, resistance training and eating a high protein diet.
But…
It’s our calories that will determine whether or not we are in a position to lose body fat.
At times we may need to increase our calories to focus on building some muscle for a while.
“we may have to zig before we can zag”
But each time we eventually focus on losing body fat again, we will have all of the tools to enjoy a toned physique.
Yours in coaching,
Harry