Toning: Now or Later?

determined24girl

Should I wait until I hit my goal weight and begin maintenance to start toning up or start now?

Do you eat at maintenance when toning or do you eat more?

CW: 151
GW: 138-140
Height: 5'7"

I'm just confused because I'm under the impression that in order to gain muscle and tone up you need to eat more, and that just worries me. I've never been at the toning up point so I'm worried that i will start eating more and not working out enough and I'll just gain all my weight back, because I know literally nothing about toning.

If I should start now, what type of exercise should I be doing? I want to work on my (non-existent) abs, my thighs and upper arms.

Sorry if this post is confusing.

ana3067

Well first of all, no such thing as "toning." What you are wanting is a lower body fat % with some muscle definition. This differentiation won't change what is required to attain the goal, but I just get annoyed when women talk about toning. Even my obese male coworker talked about how he wants to "tone" and I just cringed so much inside lol. You want muscle definition! Muuuuscle. Muscle is good.

To gain muscle you do need to eat more. To have more definition, you need to lower your body fat.

Everyone is at a "toning up" point, as it entails just lifting weights properly and eating for one's weight management goals. Eating enough protein is also important (usually 0.8x your weight in lbs is a good place to start).

If you haven't met yur weight loss goal then maintain that goal. Change the weekly goal to half a lb a week, eat back your exercise calories (at least half) if doing MFP neat method, or you can look into the TDEE method which a lot of us use. It does require consistent exercise, though, but you can lower your goal when you take breaks from exercise. Get in ~120g of protein as a start, lift heavy (3-6 reps for ~3 sets is usually ideal while in a caloric deficit, but higher reps are good when eating at maintenance or bulking if you want to put on aesthetic muscular size.. I plan on doing a 5-10 rep range once I start my first bulk later this year) with programs like SL5x5 or Starting Strength or any other full body compound routine.

maggierenee88

I've lost in total around 90 pounds. Always incorporated weight and strength into my workouts. You would never know I had excess weight on besides some stretch marks.. No loose skin anywhere. I'm at 137 right now and I'm 26, it's taken a long time to lose the weight but that also contributes to no loose skin. I would definitely recommend it!

Sued0nim

Lift to preserve as much muscle as possible as you lose weight

SergeantSausage

Define "toning", exactly ...

... 'cause what most folks mean by "toning" is actually "continued fat loss"

Seriously.

determined24girl

SergeantSausage wrote: »

Define "toning", exactly ...

... 'cause what most folks mean by "toning" is actually "continued fat loss"

Seriously.

To me "toning" is gaining muscle definition.

Sued0nim

We know what you mean but basically the word "toning" gets to people round here because it's a made up word

Muscle definition is a result of progressive weight training and low body fat

Whilst you are losing weight you should weight train to retain as much LBM as possible..because growing muscle is a difficult process

When you are low enough BF you may well want more muscles so then you either body recomp at maintenance or go on bulk and cut cycles...either way it's more progressive weight training

hilts1969

Toning is the devils word on MFP and all similar sites to be fair, you don't lift weights on a tuesday and look like arnie on a wednesday, would be nice though, lift weights and at some point in the very far future you may like the look of your body, at this point decide if you want to be bigger, toned is a point between skinny and muscular

Sued0nim

SergeantSausage wrote: »

Define "toning", exactly ...

... 'cause what most folks mean by "toning" is actually "continued fat loss"

Seriously.

Looking lean Sarge

tomatoey

determined24girl wrote: »

SergeantSausage wrote: »

Define "toning", exactly ...

... 'cause what most folks mean by "toning" is actually "continued fat loss"

Seriously.

To me "toning" is gaining muscle definition.

You can do that by making the muscles bigger or by losing some of the fat that covers them. People know what you mean by "toning", the reason they focus on picking it apart a bit is that it involves two (or three) different ways of approaching that goal.

The consensus is that eating lots of protein + lifting weights lets you keep more of your muscle as you lose weight, so that you get to the kind of definition you want in the end. You can lose the weight by reducing the amount you eat, and you can top that up with some cardio if you want. Some people find cardio helps keep their appetite down, and it does burn calories so you can eat a bit more, also it's obviously good for your heart. As long as you don't go so hard that your muscles can't recover from the weight lifting (muscles grow when they knit themselves back together after they've been stressed by weight lifting, in the recovery period).

So, for exercise, you could do strength training 2-3 times a week (maybe twice to start, any 'full body' program), and then cardio on 3-4 other days (or after you strength train), for say 45 minutes at moderate intensity.

For diet, I think the easiest way is to use the TDEE-x% method. In that case, you wouldn't log your exercise (or you would log it for just one minute), because it's already counted into the numbers.

azulvioleta6

Lift. Heavy. Start now.

ana3067

determined24girl wrote: »

SergeantSausage wrote: »

Define "toning", exactly ...

... 'cause what most folks mean by "toning" is actually "continued fat loss"

Seriously.

To me "toning" is gaining muscle definition.

Which means lowering your body fat % therefore weight loss.