What can I say about a toned body… I am not consistently there, but I would say I have been there at least 90% of the time of my life since I started understanding about health, and wellness, instead of fitness only. I deliver toning workouts, and eating habits guidelines through The Fit and Well Club. You should join me anytime soon!
Toning workouts consist in not too much resting time. Constant movement, without resting breaks, including moments of higher intensity. This is how you induce the body to burn body fat as energy source. Every time you rest, you allow the body to get back into burning glucose as primary energy source. And if your constant efforts generally don’t surpass 45 seconds, chances of burning fat through exercise are almost zero.
The dream of achieving a toned body cannot rely on toning workouts only. Your eating habits are crucial to achieve lower body fat %. This is why I keep on pushing on two eating habits guidelines: intermittent fasting, and ketogenic diet. These two are my shortcuts into staying fit, and well.
Understand that I’m not talking about calorie restriction, but quality of your food sources, and timing. Some people say: “Whenever I want to loose weight, I just close my mouth”. The issue is: that might not work for a long period of time. Your body can fall into starvation mode, and instead of becoming a burning fat machine, you can become a storing fat machine (I will talk more about this in a near future).
Inducing the body to get into a ketogenic state is not easy at first. I would say first, and second day. But if you stay strong with your purpose, you will see that the pathway will ease up, and you will stop craving food options that YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN’T EAT. Examples: bread, soda, cake, cookie, candy, pasta, rice, pizza…
Do you see a pattern between the options above? They are all primarily carbohydrates, they have almost no nutrients, neither fibers, they burn really easy in your body, and they play against your fitness goals. They do promote instant wellness, that tends to fade away really fast, and ask your brain for more… (Am I lying here?).
Once you consistently feed your body with carbohydrates, you bring your body to a high-insulin state, becoming impossible to burn fat. Besides of the well known health issues as insulin resistance, diabetes, and heart disease.
What I’m trying to propose here is: getting at least half or more of your daily calories from healthy fats, eating the right type and amount of protein, avoiding inflammatory foods including inflammatory vegetables, and having periods of time when you don’t eat.
Does it work for you? Maybe yes, maybe no! But you will never know if you don’t try! Remember: This is not about calories restriction, and fasting is not the same as starvation…
Manuella will be with you tomorrow at 8am for a 30min Pilates class. I will see you at 11am for a non stop 45min Low Impact Strength, and Conditioning. Lloyd will see you at 6pm with a High Intense Interval Training Killer Workout.
I hope you have a great night of sleep!