The Myth of “Toning”
When asking people (especially women) about their goals with weight loss and fitness they normally respond with, “Well, I’d like to tone up.” Like “clean eating,” the term is ambiguous. Google it, you’ll get THOUSANDS of articles. “Want to lose cellulite? Tone!” or “Tone up those problem areas!” Dictionary.com has a definition after a long list of ones involving sound that basically says “strengthen ill-used muscles.”
Lots of weird words for a very simple concept.
First of all, “toning” implies that you can spot reduce. They give you specific exercises for specific areas of the body, like your inner thigh, muffin top, etc. They have you powering out multiple exercises targeting one or two muscles in hope that you “replace that fat with muscle!”
It doesn’t work that way. Fat and muscle are two completely different things. Fat is our storage form of energy, muscle is what we use to move (along with tendons, ligaments, etc). They are two completely different things and one does not simply *become* the other. When you do strength training exercises you are increasing the diameter – not the length – of the muscle. Increasing your heart rate, eating below your maintenance calories, etc. will cause fat loss – but in no particular area.
Let me repeat that – fat loss does not happen in one area because you “worked” that area out. It is 100% determined by genetics as to where you gain or lose weight first/last.
That’s the myth of toning – the idea that crunches will give you a 6 pack, that the adductor machine will give you a thigh gap, or that running will only burn leg fat. You lose fat based on genetics, you gain muscle
