So not everybody wants to lose weight and tone up, but if you’re interested in building lean muscle tone, altering your body fat to muscle ratio and even sculpting your body, then listen up!
These are my Eat Yourself Fit tried and tested tips for improving your body shape to reveal a fitter and more toned you:
Want To Change Your Body Shape?
- The number of times a week you train will depend on your own lifestyle and personal goals. To maintain your current body, aim to workout three times a week, and to really change or sculpt your body, increase it to four to six times a week.
2. You certainly don’t need to spend two hours in the gym each time. Step up the intensity, take as few rests as possible, and you can get a very good workout done in thirty to forty minutes.
3. To build muscle tone and begin changing your body shape by reducing body fat and increasing lean muscle, you must work the muscle until the point of failure. You can do this with heavier weights for three sets of 10-12 reps, or lighter weights for more sets and reps. But you need to feel discomfort, tiredness, shakiness and even pain in the muscle to know that you’re causing the micro-tears in the muscle fibres that will encourage it to rebuild and repair itself into a tighter and stronger muscle, which in turn also boosts your metabolic rate. Add to this an eating plan to support your hard work in the gym, and the results will soon begin to show.
4. Try to get into the habit of pushing yourself through those final few reps that you think you can’t manage, because they’re the ones that really count. Your brain will probably try to tell your body to stop, or that it can’t go on. But mental strength and determination are key, and overcoming your brain’s messages to quit will make all the difference to your fitness and body shape.
5. To burn body fat, my advice is to do cardiovascular exercise 4-5 times a week, with high-intensity interval training a tried-and-tested way to torch calories. It can be done on the treadmill, stationary bike, cross-trainer or any other cardio machine. I like to cycle or cross-train for 30 seconds as fast as I possibly can, then slow it right down for 30 seconds and repeat for about 20 minutes. As you get fitter, you can adapt it for a longer sprint time and less recovery time. This type of high-intensity training helps to burn body fat without reducing lean muscle mass, also making it ideal for boosting your metabolism.
Finally…. Aim to follow the type of eating plan I encourage in Eat Yourself Fit with plenty of protein, complex carbs and healthy fats, with minimal processed foods, and you should begin to see some incredible changes to your physique.
