Let’s have a look at the science behind “toning”. No amount of weight training have as much of an effect on revealing the muscle as does losing fat via consistent calorie deficit. So it is almost always a weight (fat) loss issue. Even elite fitness models and physique competitors whose income depends on appearing in peak shape usually maintain an off season weight up to 1 stone (6kg) heavier than when in photo shoot condition.
Here’s a typical scenario which happened on a Rapid Fat Loss Challenge at the Government.
The member, let’s call her Shirley, says to me “I’m not overweight – I just need to tone up a bit”.
I measure her BMI. Sure enough, at five feet six inches and 10 stone 9 lbs, it’s a healthy (statistically speaking) BMI of 24.1. She is not overweight.
But when we measure her body fat percentage, we find that her body fat is a (fairly typical) 40% and her Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) is 0.9. So she has 27kg or 59 lbs of fat on her body, and much of this fat is undesirably in the mid – section – even though she is not overweight, she is over fat.
25-30% is a useful goal for women and 15-20% is useful goal for men.
Years of experience have showed me that to get in the kind of shape that most (but not all) women feel happier with, they usually have reach a body fat of 30% or less (men have to get 20% or less). Accordingly, Shirley will have to lose 7kg/15 lbs of fat (or over a stone) to reduce her fat stores to 20kg and hit the 30% fat mark
But Muscle Weighs Heavier Than Fat…
Then often people say “Ah, but what about muscle? What about that? Surely muscle weighs heavier than fat!”
It does. However, since even elite male (natural) bodybuilders struggle to gain even 5 or 6 pounds of muscle per year, then we could say that in women a proper strength/resistance programme month is going to lead to around 1-2lbs of muscle gain, tops, per year.
So in 1 month we can consider the muscle gain to be negligible – half to one pound of lean tissue which will only alter body composition (reducing fat % is what reveals the muscle) by 0.7%.
8lbs of fat loss on the other hand, will alter body composition by 4 % – 6 times as much!
The truth is that “Toning” is really something you do (more often than not) by cutting your fat stores, rather than something you do only to your muscles. Combining Progressive Resistance Training like the TBT Protocol with enjoyable cardio intervals and sensible, enjoyable energy restriction is the best way to a maximally toned appearance.
Thankfully Shirley tackled the her calories intake in a sensible way with gusto and has since dropped her body fat from 40% to 28%; reduced her waist from 29 to 25 inches and her weight by a stone to 61kg (9 stone 4lbs) and a BMI of 21.8.
The take home message is a lot of “toning” work is really done at sitting down to eat. Eat less, eating more nutritious food is at least as important as the exercise component.
Abs really are made in the kitchen as they say.