Getting rid of fat and toning without losing weight

nataliecatalie00
nataliecatalie00 Posts: 24 Member
edited November 19 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I;m 5"7 and weight 123 to 125 pounds. Over the past year I have been working on gaining weight from an eating disorder. Now at this weight I have been maintaining. For a portion of the weight gain I did without any exercise so some of the weight is nasty fat around my thighs and butt. I would like to tone. Ive been working on light toning with just my body weight and pilates stuff about 30 minutes a day and then I also jog/ walk about 3 miles a few times a week. I'm curious if its pointless to do cardio if I don't want to lose weight or will this help speed up the process by burning fat and then when I tone, I will build muscle?

Replies

  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
    You should lift heavy weights to build the muscle, cardio is fine. Eat at maintenance.
  • griffinca2
    griffinca2 Posts: 672 Member
    Ditto.
  • FitForL1fe
    FitForL1fe Posts: 1,872 Member
    pick heavy *kitten* up off the ground

    get gainz

    rinse

    repeat
  • annette_15
    annette_15 Posts: 1,657 Member
    Cardio wont do anything for your physique, but its good for general health and if you enjoy it, thats great! What the above said. Lift and eat at maintenance
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    Going Low Carb and High Fat is the best way I know to lose fat in the wrong places without losing a pound on the scales. In my case I have to get my calories up to about 3000 a day to not keep losing weight because I just did that for 90 days but did lose inches that were in the wrong places during that 90 day period that I did not gain/lose weight.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Cardio is useless for stated desire. Good for heart health though. Just confirm you are eating more if doing it.

    Your body weight stuff will shortly become not useful either, and you'll need to pick up heavier stuff so you are laboring to finish 8-12 reps with good form, doing 3 sets of lifts.

    And there is no toning, light or otherwise, so don't go searching for good routines for toning.

    Toning is usually meant to lose fat over the muscle so you can see it.

    Sadly your past dieting life left you with little muscle even if you lost the fat now.

    You need to lift weights with progressive routine. That's what you search for.

    And confirm you are using MFP correctly so really eating at maintenance to get the most from your workouts and effort - otherwise it'll take even longer.

    MFP set to maintain.
    Log your workouts accurately, Strength training when you get to that, calisthenics now. Your short cardio runs or whatever they end up being.
    Eat those calories back so there is no deficit.

    Log food correctly by weight eaten, not measured spoons and cups.
    Do the math on servings sizes by weight and container weight too.
  • Cryptonomnomicon
    Cryptonomnomicon Posts: 848 Member
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    Going Low Carb and High Fat is the best way I know to lose fat in the wrong places without losing a pound on the scales. In my case I have to get my calories up to about 3000 a day to not keep losing weight because I just did that for 90 days but did lose inches that were in the wrong places during that 90 day period that I did not gain/lose weight.

    You can't spot reduce fat and I don't understand how the macro distribution you've described would cause you to achieve that.

  • FitForL1fe
    FitForL1fe Posts: 1,872 Member
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    Going Low Carb and High Fat is the best way I know to lose fat in the wrong places without losing a pound on the scales. In my case I have to get my calories up to about 3000 a day to not keep losing weight because I just did that for 90 days but did lose inches that were in the wrong places during that 90 day period that I did not gain/lose weight.

    grats on the recomp but that post made no *kitten* sense
  • patricksmit58
    patricksmit58 Posts: 1 Member
    Hi Natalie, to build up your muscle ratio then add weight training. As we all know that food choices are very important and needs to be tuned with your lifestyle. To avoid weight and muscle loss you need to consume balanced meals (50cal/30fat/20prot or 40cal/30fat/30prot). When building up muscle by weight training it's important to consume protien for adding muscle and muscle recovery. Combination of cardio, weight training and well balanced meals is the way to go for building/maintaning your body. So answer on your question... Sure go ahead with cardio but remember to eat enough! :-)
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    OP - listen to Heybales, don't listen to GaleHawkins.

  • ExRelaySprinter
    ExRelaySprinter Posts: 874 Member
    edited May 2015
    nataliecatalie00 wrote: »
    For a portion of the weight gain I did without any exercise so some of the weight is nasty fat around my thighs and butt. I would like to tone.
    If that's you in the photo, i don't see any "nasty fat" on you!
    But as others have said, you probably need to do some form of weight lifting, to gain muscle.
    Still do some Cardio though (to keep fit & healthy).

  • nataliecatalie00
    nataliecatalie00 Posts: 24 Member
    Thank you everyone for your input. I have read everything, and have gained some good info.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Depending how severe your eating disorder is/was you may want to run heavy lifting past your recovery team
This discussion has been closed.

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