Can You Really Tone Your Body?

Today, a question on the subject of muscle tone and the way to get it.

Q. I would like to know how to sculpt my stomach without turning the fat into bulky muscle mass.

A. Don’t get worried with regards to turning body fat into bulky muscle. Contrary to everyday opinion, you cannot turn muscle mass into fat, or fat into muscle.

When most people say that they want to achieve the type of appearance shown in this article, what they really mean is that they wish to lose weight and replace it with a little muscle.

Think about it. What’s a more “toned” body, if it’s not one with a lesser amount of fat, and a little more muscle?

The best way to sculpt any section of the body – whether it’s your stomach area, your biceps and triceps, or your chest – is to stick to a proper routine of strength training and aerobic exercise.

I understand that the majority of ladies panic when they’re informed that they may add muscle. The fact is, the amount of muscle you’ll develop, particularly if you’re following a restricted-calorie eating plan, is significantly less than you may realise.

It requires several years of working hard along with an almost fanatical obsession with diet and exercise to produce the kind of muscle bound female figures you see in the magazines.

In one scientific study, thirty-two women were assigned to one of 3 training routines – a free-weights routine, a Nautilus equipment routine, or a Soloflex machine program.

Even though the ladies gained strength, there was no change in the size of the thighs or arms. Average waist size actually got smaller. In other words, rather than “bulking up,” the ladies really became leaner.

Fat is less dense as compared to muscle tissue, and weighs about 0.9 grams per cubic centimeter (compared to 1.07 grams for muscle tissue). What this means is that one pound of muscle tissue will take up less room than a single pound of fat.

Studies show that if you follow a low-calorie diet for 12 weeks, roughly 7 from every 10 pounds that you lose will come from fat. Blend aerobic exercise with a low-calorie diet, and 8 of every 10 pounds you lose will come from fat. However, with a mixture of resistance training, cardiovascular exercise, and a low-calorie diet, you may expect virtually all of the weight you shed to come from body fat.

One of the reasons strength training is really effective at assisting you get rid of fat is that it boosts your metabolism for up to two days after a workout. In addition, muscle is a more active tissue than fat. People with more muscle normally have an increased metabolism. This means they use up more calories and a lot more fat – regardless of whether they’re not at the gym.

Where does diet come in?

To firm up, just about the most important nutrient is protein.

If you don’t get enough protein in your diet, then your system starts using its own sources of protein for energy. And guess where your body gets the protein from? It begins eating away at your muscle tissue – decreasing your rate of metabolism, making you sluggish and reducing muscle tone.

Diet plans higher in protein containing less carbohydrate also generate greater weight reduction. Precisely how? They deliver the results because protein boosts your rate of metabolism (so that you burn more calories) and helps to keep you feeling fuller for a longer time (therefore you eat less).

If you can’t obtain a sufficient amount of protein every day, you’ll quickly lose strength, become less strong plus your metabolic rate will decrease.