Toning Up: Consistency is the key

Depending on how much muscle definition you have (or don't have) and how much fat you have stored in your body will determine just how fast you will be able to see the changes.

Let me explain.

To look good, muscles need to be used. The fibres inside the muscle tissue need to be worked and worked on a regular basis. You cannot do a single gym session and expect to look "ripped".

The second aspect is fat to muscle ratio you have.

There are many measures which can be done to determine how much fat you are carrying, but for muscles to "show definition" you need to burn the fat. Interestingly a lot of the fat our bodies carry lies just under the skin and annoyingly over the top of our muscles. We may be able to do a squillion sit ups, but if our body fat is too high - we're never going to have a "six-pack"

So what can you do?

Well it is a good practice to do some form of both cardio weight bearing exercise - the cardio (over time) burns the fat, and the muscles (believe it or not) become our fat burning machine.

In the first instance, when you are toning your body, (unless you are eating way too much food) is to ramp up the amount of exercise that you do. You may not weigh any less on the scale but you can tone up your body and look slimmer - and the reason is simple. A kilo of fat takes up twice as much space as muscle, or a kilo of muscle takes up half the space of the fat.

And while we are dispelling a few urban myths here - muscles cannot become fat (flabby yes - through lack of use) and fat cannot become muscle.

When it comes to toning our bodies we need to remember - we cannot start and stop, we must be prepared to find some form of exercise we are willing to do on a regular basis for the rest of our lives.