"I just want to be toned"

Wednesday night I was hanging out in Barrio waiting for my girlfriend to join me for dinner and I heard these two women next to me talking about fitness stuff. They were scrolling through some other girl’s Instagram and talking about her workout routine.

The one girl talked about how she thought that the girl’s exercise routine was too intense and that she was focused too much on gaining muscle. Her friend agreed and then said “I want to work out, I just don’t want to get big. Like, I just want to get toned.” The other girl agreed and said something to the effect of “Yeah, I don’t want to look all muscely.”

Cue me rolling my eyes, internally sighing, and almost turning around and saying “if you have tone, you have muscles. Being toned is a myth. That doesn’t exist. You want tone? Lose weight and lift heavy.”

But I didn’t. I just sipped my margarita and made a note to write this blog.

I will be the first to admit that I use to think exactly like them. I was terrified of weights because I didn’t want to “get big,” but I always wanted to get “toned.” Before I started lifting heavy, I was doing the things that I thought would help me achieve that “toned” look I wanted.

I did cardio. I used weight machines. I did body weight exercises. I lifted light dumbbells.

But I wasn’t seeing any results.

Frustrated by this and feeling pudgy, I decided to get into keto and lifting heavy. It worked well for Nate so I thought “why not?”

Lo and behold, I dropped weight, lifted lots of heavy things, and bam: muscle tone.

Granted, I still have a lot of work to do. Lose more weight, lift more heavy things, get more muscles, but it’s progress. Significant progress considering I’ve only been doing it for 3 and a half months.

The whole point of me writing this is to try and dispel the whole “get toned” thing. You cannot get toned without doing extra work. You cannot get toned unless you lose body fat. You cannot get toned unless you work hard at lifting. You cannot get toned unless you eat correctly.

You have to put in hard and intense work at the gym and in the kitchen to get toned.

Muscle tone is made by lifting heavy things and eating the right food and there’s no way around that.

Now let's tackle the whole “I don’t want to get huge” thing.

I know for a lot of women, seeing other women who have a lot of muscle definition is intimidating. I know I still get super intimidated by some of those intense women lifters with biceps and quads. They were actually one of the reasons I was intimidated and hesitant to start lifting heavy at all.

When I expressed this fear to Nate, he chuckled and said “Look, this is simple. If you find yourself getting bigger than you want to, stop lifting. It’s that simple. You’re not going to go to the gym, squat and benchpress and suddenly be huge. It doesn’t work that way.”

As soon as he said this I realized how silly my fear was.

People work hard for their muscles. Even I work hard for my measly muscle gains (granted I could work harder, note to self) but I’ve been doing this for 3 and a half months and still am not in the “toned” zone.

Bottom line: If you want tone, lift heavy weights and eat right. If you want tone but don’t want to get big, lift heavy weights and eat right.

I know that lifting heavy is intimidating and weight rooms feel like a boys club but you can do it. Find a great starting lifting program (like StrongLifts 5x5) and do work. There are tons of training videos. Take your time and you will be lifting heavy in no time.

Oh...also. P.S. on the boys club weight rooms: Walk in with intention. Do your lifts. Do them well. Then leave. No one is going to laugh at you. No one is going to stare (alright, they may stare, just stare back). You are all there to work. Do the work and you will be well on your way to being toned and feeling great.