How To Get Toned At Home – The Simple Way

You can get toned at home and it doesn’t require you to buy anything. All you have to do is follow two simple steps.

Get Toned At Home?

Don’t you have to join a gym that costs a ton of money? No. But you have to buy the DVD course “Tight and Toned” by Lana Fontana, right? Or at least the e-book (on sale now, for just $19.95)? No and no again. And you won’t need to buy any supplements either.

All you need is you, a bit of time and what I’m going to show you. You put that into action and stick with it. That is all it takes to get those wonderful firm arms and kryptonite buttocks you could protect nuclear reactors under.

Toning Explained In Two Steps

Many of you already tried getting toned at home by following some of these accursed DVD toning programs that are nothing but aerobics. Others had fitness trainers tell them to train with light, little weights until their arms fell off. Did these do anything to get you where you want?

It’s because they miss one or both parts of the toning equation. To get toned for real, you have to do just two things:

• reduce the fat layer that covers your muscles
• do exercises with weights big enough to challenge you

If you only lose fat but the muscle is not big enough, the skin will stay just as flabby as always. If you build muscle but don’t lose the fat, the muscle keeps hiding under its cozy layers. You catch the drift.

Fat Layer Redux

To get rid of fat means getting rid of body weight. Whenever you feed your body fewer calories than it burns it will start using its energy reserves (= fat) to keep you running.

Any diet, really any diet, achieves that for you. You can count calories. Or do low carb. Or go for vegan style. Or head for the Zone. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that you pick a diet you can stick with. If on the diet you chose you frequently find yourself cheating, sick, overly hungry or anything else that keeps you from succeeding, pick another.

Get The Muscle With Just Four Toning Exercises

Forget making puffy little noises with pink little dumbbells for 50 reps. We need you to really work it. That means a workout where you get sweaty and likely feel sore the next day.

To tone your legs and buttocks you need an exercise that targets the big quadriceps on the front of your thigh and the gluteus maximus (yep, that big muscle that makes up your bottom). For your arms you need to get the biceps and triceps into action. And let’s not forget the abs.

You can achieve the toned look with just four home exercises.

It only takes four toning exercises to do it all. Four exercises that will cover your entire body, need practically no equipment and you can do them at home within 30 minutes. Want them? Here they are! For your convenience in a plan with exact explanations and links to videos.

Don’t forget to talk with your doctor before you get into this! Being dead is a pretty big obstacle toward getting toned!

But What About Running And Aerobics?

Yes, those burn calories. If you do a lot of running, you can eat some more calories and still lose fat. But more than one newbie fell for the “I ran for 30 minutes, I deserve a pizza / milkshake /some chocolate” trap. It’s the source of all “I go to the gym 7 times per week and don’t lose weight” postings.

Why? Because you can very, very easily outeat whatever you burned through exercise! Check here for a list about what activity burns what. Then check the second list there and weep.

For The Already Skinny Among You

If your hip bones are already sticking out, you don’t need to lose weight. It’s not because you are too fat that you don’t look toned and have no abs. No, it’s because you are so skinny that your muscles are microscopically small. If that’s you, you need to fully concentrate on the muscle-building business!

Home Toning – Just Do it!

You now know all you have to get toned at home. It doesn’t require anything fancy, so I won’t put it in fancy language: if you want it, get to it.

Pictures courtesy of Earl McGehee and Phil Wendler.