Exercises for toning up and help with calorie intake

L

lifebythedrop

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Hello everyone!! Im new here and would love some advice and feedback,

A little bit about myself -Im 25 years old, female and about 5'2 and weigh 112 lbs. I lost about 10 pounds since the summer from just changing my diet. Eating lots of veggies, fruits and protein. Carbs about 2 times a week. Just started doing a 20 minute workout almost everyday for the past two weeks, Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. I dont want to lose much more weight, maybe another 5 pounds but mostly I want to tone.

So my questions are:
1) how many calories should I be consuming in a day to tone but still lose a bit of weight?
2) should I be taking 'rest' days and if so, how many per week?
3) is 20 mins a day 'enough' of a workout?
4) is whey isolate a good protein for a female to take?


thank you :)
 
Okay, so the "toned" look is the product of having visible muscle mass, usually in balanced proportions and with enough of it to give the body shape. To have visible muscle mass, you actually have to have the required muscle mass in the first place. If at 112lb you don't yet have that visible muscle mass, it's probably because you don't have the muscle mass to be made visible. Which means that right now you don't want to be losing weight. I know you think you do, but if the result you're after is being "toned," then in reality you don't.

Instead, you want to be doing whole-body strength training and eating at a slight calorie surplus (ie gaining weight). You've already lost 10lb, hopefully it's been 10lb of fat. This will sound very counter-intuitive, but I recommend you work on gaining 10lb of bodyweight back, but do it slowly and try to build it in the form of muscle mass. Then, while continuing strength training to maintain that muscle mass, work on losing 10lb bodyweight again. I know this sounds tedious, but it's just the way these things tend to work best. Now, with that being given, to answer your questions...

1) While trying to build muscle, start with about 15kcal/lb bodyweight per day. If you're not gaining 2lb bodyweight/month while doing that, then go up to 17-18kcal/lb, and see how you go. Adjust as necessary.

While trying to lose the fat covering up your muscle mass, start with 13-14kcal/lb bodyweight/day. If you're not losing 0.5-1lb/week at that amount, go down to 10-12kcal/lb and see how you go. Again, adjust as necessary.

Whatever your calorie intake is, make sure you're getting 1g protein/lb bodyweight/day in your diet, as well as half that much (0.5g/lb/day) fat.

2) Yes. It depends on the program you're doing, and since I've never looked into any programs with Jillian Michaels' name on them, I don't know what would be appropriate to that program. If you were on a program that I'd written, you'd most likely be training 3 days a week and resting the remainder of the week.

3) Again, depends on what you do in those 20 min. I could give you a good cardio session in 20min, but a decent strength training session would probably take more like 30-45min. The consolation there is that you'd spend half the time resting.

4) I don't know much about protein supplements, but your gender and goals won't have anything to do with what kind of protein you should be consuming. It'll affect how you should choose the specific mixture, based on what ELSE is in there, but anyway... You can have whey protein isolate, you can have whey protein concentrate...I prefer to just have milk, which whey protein is a by-product of. In any case, what supplements you use are insignificant compared to whether or not you're on a good program, whether or not you're doing the program correctly, whether or not you're generally eating right, whether or not you're sleeping well, how your work life and personal life are going, how stressful your life is and how you manage stress, etc. I'd worry about that before I'd spend too much time thinking about what artificial/unnatural things you can put in your body.
 
Thanks a lot for your reply taking in all this info slowly but I'm understanding more everyday!

. So, I think I have pretty good muscle mass in my legs its visible , stomach not so much and arms is okay. My stomach is my main focus then arms second.

I should up my workout time and take rest days 2 times a week? Its hard finding what workouts to do since I can't afford the gym and a trainer. jillians vid is okay, only 5 bucks! Cheap. So do you think I should ditch it and do my own routine? What could it include for my main areas that I find
need help? thanks again, I really appreciate you helping me! I'm clueless when it comes to this stuff but I really want to learn.
 
I honestly don't know whether you should stick with Jillian's DVD or do something else.

If I were a beginner training at home on a budget, I'd get an adjustable dumbbell (and possibly cheap, shoddy barbell) set. Where I live, there's a store offering a 50kg (total) set that includes 1 barbell, 2 dumbbells and a pile of weight discs to put on the barbell/dumbbells for only $99. The quality isn't great, but it'll do what you need it to do. In all good programs, you want to be doing movements such as squats, deadlifts, horizontal push (push ups, bench press, dips), vertical push (overhead press, push press, jerk), horizontal pull (most row variations) and vertical pull (pull ups, lat pull down, upright row). At home you won't be able to do much with vertical pulls other than upright rows, but you will be able to do all the other movements with bodyweight, dumbbells and barbells. Every one of those exercises will strengthen the core, and doing each movement will lead to fairly even development across the whole body.

Here's something you can do with no equipment:
- Bodyweight Squats: build up to 3 sets of 20, then progress up to jump squats or box jumps.
- Push Ups: build up to 3 sets of 15, then progress up to push ups on one leg or clapping push ups.
- Flutters (lie on the ground face down, spread your arms like you're a plane, and move your hands in figure-8 patterns just above the floor without touching the floor) for time.
- Planks for time.
- Glute bridges: build up to 3 sets of 20, then progress to 1-legged glute bridges.

Here's what you can do with DB's:
- Alternate between Goblet Squats and DB Squats, holding the DBs together and squatting down until the DBs touch the ground between your feet.
- Alternate between push ups and DB overhead press.
- Alternate between renegade rows and standing upright rows.
- Superset planks with glute bridges.
 
Thank you for the awesome reply!! I will start with those workouts, and I'll get a dumbbell too. I have one more question, does cardio build muscle or are weight lifting more effective? I've read some people say they don't even bother with cardio?
 
lifebythedrop said:
Hello everyone!! Im new here and would love some advice and feedback,

A little bit about myself -Im 25 years old, female and about 5'2 and weigh 112 lbs. I lost about 10 pounds since the summer from just changing my diet. Eating lots of veggies, fruits and protein. Carbs about 2 times a week. Just started doing a 20 minute workout almost everyday for the past two weeks, Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. I dont want to lose much more weight, maybe another 5 pounds but mostly I want to tone.

So my questions are:
1) how many calories should I be consuming in a day to tone but still lose a bit of weight?
2) should I be taking '' days and if so, how many per week?
3) is 20 mins a day 'enough' of a workout?
4) is whey isolate a good protein for a female to t


thank you :)
Click to expand...

1) The average female can consume 1400 a day without gaining weight. So you workout and burn 300 calories in 20 minutes, now it's 1700 you can eat without gaining weight. So in order to lose, you will want to consume less than 1700 calories for what you are working out.
2, 3) If only 20 minutes, shoot for every single day with a day off depending upon your schedule. 20 minutes isn't really enough. Try 40 minutes of running and 30 minutes of weights.
4) Whey is great post workout if you're trying to add muscle. It can add all kinds of extra calories if you want to bulk and the extra weight can sneak up on you, especially if you are mixing them with milk.

Running is your best friend. Load up your ipod. I do an hour a day, six days a week.
 
Cutting calories through dietary changes seems to promote weight loss more effectively than does exercise and physical activity. The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you consume. You need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound. The other easy way to fast burn fat is to start by running at least 30 minutes per day.
 
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