How to Lose Weight and Build Muscle (aka Tone Up)
As a Personal Trainer, I can confidently say that 75% of my female clients want to lose weight and “tone up”. Many of them, and by no fault of their own, believe that doing cardio is the best (and sometimes only) way to lose weight and “tone up” because weights will make them “bulky”.
There’s a lot of BS out there, so let’s take a step back and define what “tone up” really means. Toning up, means increase the ratio of lean muscle mass relative to body fat – meaning to lose body fat and/or build or maintain muscle. When you‘re able to do both, you‘re “toning up”. To do this, you need to start lifting weights and eat in a calorie deficit (while maintaining optimal protein intake). The age-old saying that “abs are made in the kitchen” is true.
How do you create a calorie deficit?
Calories are a unit of measurement of how much food energy contains. A calorie deficit is created when you expend more energy than the calories you consume. This means your body burns more calories than you’re eating, leading to fat loss.
The infographic above, shows that calories matter when it comes to losing, gaining or maintaining weight. Whatever diet you follow, whether it’s keto, intermittent fasting, the 5:2 method or paleo, calories in vs. calories out is king. How you do it through your preferred diet is simply a tool to get you there.
As a starting point, you can use the James Smith calculator to estimate how many calories you should consume based on your goals, then use MyFitnessPal to start logging and tracking your calorie (food) intake. To make sure you’re eating the right amount of calories, be sure to check your weight on a weekly basis. You’ll know you’re eating in a calorie deficit if you start losing weight or a calorie surplus if you start gaining weight. If your weight remains the same, then you’re at maintenance!
TIP - measure your weight on the same day and time every week to keep it consistent and accurate.
So how does lifting weights help you “tone up”?
Building muscle and maintaining a great physique (toning up) takes years of training and dedication. It’s harder for women to build large muscles because we’re usually smaller to begin with and our hormone make up is different. Females have approximately 1/10th-1/20th the testosterone of males so it is very difficult for women to look stereotypically “manly” or “bulky” (Orphic Education).
Lifting weights is a great way to increase your physical activity and exercise and build muscle. This means that lifting weights has 2 great benefits: expending more energy through physical activity and exercise and building muscle at the same time.
Why is that important? Firstly, you are expending more energy (an increase in the amount of calories you burn) to help you lose weight. And secondly, you are building muscle. Now, we know that muscle is metabolically more active than fat which means the more muscle you have compared to fat, the more calories you burn at rest, leading to “toned up” look. That’s a win-win.
So if there are two things you can take away from this blog, it’s:
- Calories in vs calories out will determine if you maintain, lose, or gain weight
- Ditch the myth that weights make women look bulky. If you haven’t noticed, there are more and more women out there moving heavy ass weights, so join them!
If you need a bit of help or guidance to get started, I’m here to help! Feel free to contact me to learn more about how I can help you with a structured training program and nutrition guidance.
