The combination of weight lifting and dieting has shown to be the most effective for fat loss and muscle toning. Weight lifting will strengthen the muscles, while proper nutrition will help burn fat around the muscle, and provide energy required for lean tissue building. Toning your body must include both proper nutrition and exercise in order to achieve the results desired.
Weight Lifting to Tone Muscles
There is a difference between toning and bulking up. Toning involves building lean muscle tissue while burning the fat around the muscle. Weight lifting works both ways: it builds muscle and burns fat at the same time due to the mechanics of the exercise, thus accentuating the curves and shape of the muscles.
Toning requires some level of muscular exertion and exhaustion, without the effects of bulking up. Weight lifting does not necessarily have to be associated with building large muscle mass as is so commonly believed. Toned muscles do require a certain degree of muscle build up, but not enough to bulk up.
Moderate Weight and High Reps to Tone
A toning weight lifting routine should involve a moderate amount of weight, just enough to build an adequate amount of lean muscle tissue. Ideally, you should be performing between 12 to 20 reps of a certain exercise, for one to three sets. If you are unable to reach eight reps in one set before muscle failure, then the weight is perhaps too heavy. The weight should be heavy enough so that after 12 to 20 reps, your muscle is burning, and you are unable to continue with the set. The burning sensation is associated both with lean muscle tissue building and fat burning.
Frequency of Workouts
Exercise each body part about three days a week in order to increase the effects of your weight lifting efforts on toning your muscles. A proper and effective toning regimen should incorporate commitment and frequency to produce results. This also means that the workout should be continued for a minimum of four weeks to see results.
Your Diet while Toning
What you eat can have just as much of an effect on your body as weight lifting. Lack of a proper meal plan can have detrimental effects on your attempt to tone your body and stay fit. Proper nutrition will help you lose fat, gain muscle, speed up your metabolism and feed your muscles.
While toning your muscles, you should attempt to cut back on daily calorie consumption in order to allow your body to use stored fat for energy sources. In addition, you should make sure to get your calories from proper sources, and in proper proportions. Your diet should be balanced appropriately with 30% protein, 40% carbohydrates and 30% fats.
Eat Smaller, More Frequent Meals
How you spread out your meals throughout the day can have great effects on how your body metabolizes its ingested calories. A 1500 calorie per day diet is metabolized much more efficiently if it is divided into six smaller meals rather than three larger meals. Spreading the calories out evenly throughout the day, and eating every three to four hours, can actually speed up your metabolism. By shortening the time between meals, your body will actually consume more calories, rather than storing them as they would if the time between meals was extended.
Combining both diet and weight lifting into your daily routine can have great effects on toning muscles. Dedicating yourself to proper nutrition and regular exercise will not only improve the appearance of your muscles and body shape, but it will also improve your quality of life.