Today, something dedicated to muscle tone and the way to get it.

Q. I would like to know how to tone my belly without turning excess fat into bulky muscle.

A. Don’t worry about turning unwanted fat into bulky muscle. Contrary to everyday opinion, you can’t turn muscle mass into fat, or fat into muscle.

When the majority of people say that they wish to know how to tone up what they actually imply is that they would like to drop fat and replace it with a little lean muscle.

Think about it. What’s a more toned body, if it’s not one with a smaller amount fat, and somewhat more muscle?

The best way to firm up any part of your body – whether it’s your belly, your biceps and triceps, or maybe your chest – is to stick to a proper system of strength training and aerobic exercise.

I understand that many females freak out if they are told that they’re going to gain muscle. Truth is, the quantity of muscle you will gain, especially if you’re using a restricted-calorie eating plan, is really a lot less than perhaps you believe.

It requires many years of working hard along with an almost crazy obsession with diet and exercise to produce the kind of carved female physiques you might have seen in the magazines.

In one study, 32 ladies were allotted to one of 3 training routines – a free-weights program, a Nautilus machine routine, or a Soloflex machine program.

Even though the subjects gained strength, there was no alternation in the size of the thighs or arms. Average waist size actually dropped. Put simply, as opposed to “bulking up,” the women really got leaner.

Fat is less dense when compared with muscle, and weighs about 0.9 grams per cubic centimeter (compared to 1.07 grams for muscle). What this means is that one pound of muscle will take up much less room than a single pound of fat.

Research shows that if you stick to a low-calorie diet for 3 months, approximately 7 out of every ten pounds which you lose will come from fat. Mix cardiovascular exercise with a low-calorie diet, and 8 of the 10 pounds you drop will come from fat. However, with a mixture of strength training, aerobic exercise, and a low-calorie diet, you may expect virtually all of the excess weight you lose to come from fat.

One good reason strength training is so efficient at helping you reduce body fat is that it raises your rate of metabolism for up to 48 hours after a workout. What’s more, muscle tissue is a more metabolically active tissue than fat. People who have more muscle normally have an increased metabolism. What this means is they use up more calories and a lot more fat – even when they’re not at the gym.

Where does diet come in?

To firm up, quite possibly the most important nutrient is protein.

Unless you get adequate protein in your daily diet, then your system will begin using its own protein sources for energy. And guess where that protein comes from? It will start eating away at your muscles – decreasing your metabolic rate, making you weaker and decreasing muscle tone.

Diets higher in protein containing less carbohydrate also generate larger weight reduction. How? They deliver the results because protein will increase your metabolism (so that you burn more calories) and keeps you feeling fuller for longer (so you eat less).

If you fail to obtain adequate protein each and every day, you’ll swiftly lose strength, become less strong and your metabolic rate will slow down.