Avoiding the "Skinny Fat" Trap

This week Bree is talking all about the difference between building muscle and toning, why you shouldn't be scared to build muscle.

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Are you looking for a space where you will learn to improve your mental strength, emotional health, and heal your insecurities from the inside out? Take the first step to living a more meaningful life with the Better Me with Body Fiber Podcast. I'm your host, Free. I'm a certified personal trainer, entrepreneur, and mother of three. I've helped empower thousands of women to take action through fitness, nutrition, meditation, personal development, and aligning thoughts with action. This podcast is for those who are ready to feel inspired and motivated to live a more purposeful life. Let's grow together. I've trained over 5,000 women, and the number one thing I hear is that they want to lose weight and tone their body. The problem is most women don't actually know what toning is or how to get their body to look the way they want. This podcast will dive into the difference between muscle building and toning and how to use these tools to get the body you want. Let's get started. All right, first off, I have a myth buster for you. Building muscle is actually really, really hard to do. Getting bulky is really hard to do if you're a woman. You have to work super hard in the gym to gain muscle, and you have to be eating enough. So, what is the difference between toning and building muscle? Well, technically, toning is another word for leaning out to show the muscle that you have. That's what you already have, and you're just burning off that body fat to expose it. Well, building muscle is putting on size or muscle mass. So, for example, when I ask clients to fill out their questionnaire, I have them specify if they want to lean out or if they want to build muscle because the approach is very different. And I feel like women just kind of use the word toning because they feel like that's kind of that lean look that they're looking for, but they don't really know what that means. So if you select building muscle, then what I would do with you is I would actually increase your calories, I would lower your cardio, and I would have you lift super heavy. And once you're good with the muscle that you have, and we've gone through our muscle building phase, which would actually last a lot longer than eight weeks, it should your muscle building phase should be more like four to six months. Um, and then once you're good with the muscle that you've put on, then we would do a deficit or a cut, and that would help you lean out to expose the muscle that you have built over the last four to six months. So you kind of have like, I don't want to call them bulking phases because women hate to hear that, but you have phases where you're, if you really are trying to sculpt your body, you need phases where you're building the muscle and then exposing the muscle, and then you build the muscle and then you expose the muscle. But you're if you're constantly in a deficit, you're never gonna be able to build the muscle. You'll just be that skinny fat look, right? Have you heard of the term skinny fat? Where a lot of women will like lose the weight, they'll be so excited they lost the weight, but their body still doesn't look how they want it to because they have no definition because they've just dieted, they've always been in a deficit and they haven't really focused on trying to build muscle. So let's say you want to lean out, and that's what you chose on the questionnaire. Well, if you want to lean out, then I would increase your cardio a little bit. Um, I would lower your calories a little bit to help lower body fat, and that would help you see the muscle under the fat. You would still lift heavy, you would still lift weights every day. Um, but if you're really trying to lean out, then we have to look at your metabolism and we have to look at the calories in versus calories out. So, like anytime you're more active, right, then that's gonna help you lean out. But it's a delicate balance because here's where diet history really comes into play. And that's if you've been dieting for a really long time and you've hit a plateau, you might need to reverse up before you actually go into that deficit. Because if you're already at the bottom, you can't diet anymore, right? Like if you're already doing an hour of cardio a day, you can't do more cardio a day. And that's why sometimes people will see results when they actually reverse up and fuel their body and start lifting heavy. They're like, whoa, I actually started burning more fat, or whoa, I actually feel stronger. My body actually has shape to it, it actually looks really good. So um, that's the science behind it. I know it can be kind of confusing. It actually is very individual. And that's why I always ask my clients background, because it's not a one size fits all. Like if you do have to lose 40 pounds, then yeah, we're gonna put you in a deficit, right? Um, but if you've already been in a deficit for nine months and you hit a wall, then we're we'll reverse for a little bit, repair your metabolism, and then try again. The biggest mistake I see with women is that they do too much cardio and they don't eat enough protein or calories to actually have the body that they want. So I know it sounds counterintuitive to eat a little bit more and lift heavier weights, but it's true. Like if you aren't eating enough calories, you'll not have enough glucose to repair your muscles. And then your body will use your muscle as energy and it will burn through it. So you're really wasting a lot of time lifting if you aren't properly fueling your body after your workout. So let's talk about cardio. Now, if you just do cardio and you're a cardio bunny, you will become a smaller version of what you already are. But if you lift with a specific program, you will be able to sculpt your body. And that's why I build very specific programs for clients to see results. So we incorporate muscle splits in our programs because you have to work each specific muscle consistently enough to see results. So you like a lot of women, they either just want to do cardio or full body workouts, and those are great for your health. Like, yes, they're they're gonna be great for your heart health. Um, yes, they might help you lose some weight, but you're not gonna really get the body that you want from doing full body workouts or cardio because you're not able to actually sculpt your body. And I would split your workouts into a leg day and then a chest and triceps day, and then a back and biceps day, and then a shoulders day. Um, because you have to make small tears in those muscle fibers in order for them to build and repair stronger. So if you think about when you do a full body workout, you might do one back exercise, one shoulder, one leg, one core, and then that's it. Like, yeah, you're burning calories, but you're not actually doing enough to those muscles to shape them and to really develop them and build them. And um, so yeah, that just I feel like I need to explain that a little deeper for women to really understand. Like when I was competing, I had to focus. I literally would do like nine shoulder exercises on shoulder day. Like I burnt out my shoulders. That was all I did was shoulders. And then I got really cute shoulders, right? Like you're not gonna do that. You might lose weight, but you're not really gonna sculpt your body by just doing these full body workouts. So um also if you're doing random workouts every day uh that you just randomly find on Instagram and you're not following a program that has progression, that is structured, that helps you hit each body type, um, then again, you're not gonna sculpt your body. Now let's talk about intensity. If you are not lifting heavy enough, you will not see a change. You have to challenge yourself. You have to get out of your comfort zone. So, my rule of thumb is if I told you, hey, I'll give you $1,000 if you do one more rep, you should barely be able to finish that rep. That's the intensity that you want. Most women can lift a lot more than they think. They're just super nervous or they get stuck in their comfort zone. So I'm gonna challenge you to lift a little heavier than you think you can, even if it's just five pounds. I don't care what it is. I you'd be, you will surprise yourself. If you just challenge yourself, you'll surprise yourself. And don't be scared of it. Like that's the goal. The goal is to lift as heavy as you can so that you can build that muscle and lean out and get nice and toned. Um, so what happens when you do too much cardio? You can, it's a very delicate balance. So if you're doing too much cardio and not eating enough, you can actually burn through all that hard-earned muscle and your body actually adapts to what you do. So if you do an hour a day of cardio, your body will start needing an hour a day to maintain where you're at. Not to mention that's actually really hard on your adrenals and it can lead to adrenal fatigue. So the goal is to actually do the least amount of cardio you can get away with while maintaining your muscle and seeing results. So, yes, cardio is great for heart health, but when you lift heavy, you're gonna also get your heart rate up as well. So it's not like you're not doing any, you know, you're not getting your heart rate up, or you are still getting your heart rate up, so it's still gonna be beneficial. And I'm not saying don't do cardio. I'm just saying like don't become a cardio bunny because we wanna preserve the muscle. Um, when I was competing, we would start with 20 minutes of cardio. And then whenever I hit a plateau is when we'd add, like, okay, we're gonna add, you know, 10 minutes. And then I'd go maybe another month and I'd hit a plateau, we'd add 10 more minutes. Like it was not, you don't go straight to doing an hour a day because then if you hit a plateau, you have nowhere to go. And that's unnecessary stress on your body. So that's why it's great to taper it down. So why do some women get bulky? A lot of women use this term like, oh, I feel bulky. It's actually because maybe you're eating too much. So it is a delicate balance. You do have to know your macros for your specific body. What is your maintenance? What is your surplus? What is your deficit for your body and your diet history? Um, if you're eating way more than you're used to and you're lifting heavy, you will gain size. So that's where, you know, you have to slowly reverse up. And if you're feeling like, hey, I'm feeling a little puffy or I'm feeling a little bulky, then you stay there. You don't keep increasing my increasing the calories. Um, and if you don't want to gain size, then what I would do is stay at maintenance. I wouldn't go into a huge surplus and we'd keep your reps between 10 to 12 instead of like four to eight, right? Like four to eight reps, if people someone like let's say a man is trying to gain size, right? Or a woman is maybe an ectomorph body type and really trying to put on muscle, then she would do more like, you know, maybe in the eight rep, maybe four to eight reps and maybe four sets and go as heavy as possible. Where most of my clients want to like lean out and really see their muscle definition. I have them do more in like the 10 to 15 rep range. So the goal again is not to just burn calories in your workout. So I want you to stop judging your workout as successful depending on how many calories you burned. Instead, focus on adding weight and really lifting as heavy as you can so you can build the muscle, because you have to remember that the more muscle you have at rest, or the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn at rest. The goal is to build muscle, not just burn calories. So when you lift heavy, you won't burn as many calories in the actual workout, but you'll burn more calories over the next 72 hours, if that makes sense. Okay. So, um, like I said, when I was competing, honestly, I was lifting heavier than I ever have before. And I actually kept getting leaner and leaner. It was because of my diet. Like what I was eating was so clean and so lean that I just kept getting leaner. And I actually looked like I was more muscular, but a lot of that was because I was losing the body fat to expose what muscle I did have. Now, if I didn't have muscle before and I was in a cut, I'll just get smaller and smaller and smaller. Like I'm not really sculpting my body in a cut. So that's why it's important to differentiate. Are you cutting or are you trying to build muscle? Which one is it? Because you can't do both at the same time, right? So hopefully this is helpful. I want to empower women to remember that speeding up their metabolism by eating more food and shaping their body with weights is where you will find the keys to having the body that you want. Because it's not about starvation. It's not about doing an hour of cardio, right? You got this. If you need help, remember that's what I do. I'd love to show you the magic of a structured lifting program and macros that are designed specifically for your body, because you will not believe how quickly your body changes when you have those two things. All right, guys, I will see you back here next time. Thank you for joining us in today's episode. If you liked the content and want to hear more, remember to hit that subscribe button and write a review. As a small business owner, I appreciate it more than you know. If you are looking for a program to help with self-confidence, to lose weight, get in shape, and work on your mental, physical, and emotional health. Check out my training programs on www.bodyby.com. My team and I help to hold you accountable through the Body Bible app, where you log in to see all your workouts, custom meal plan made specifically for you and your needs, and communication through the messenger. You are never alone when you're on the Body by Bree Training program. Click the link in the show notes to get more information on how to transform your life from the inside out.