Toned vs Skinny - Why you should Tone It Up for your Health!

I liked this article about getting toned and healthy versus skinny, which has been

the overwhelming goal for so many. Let me know what you think.

A lot of you tell us you work so hard to be healthy, but we've begun to notice that when we open our favorite magazines, all we see is skinny; when we turn on the television, all we see is skinny; when we go out for our holiday shopping, all we see is skinny marketing, everywhere! What gives then? Why would we ever want to be anything but skinny?! Simply Put, Skinny doesn’t necessarily mean healthy; and in most cases, if you are ‘skinny’ you may not be healthy at all! A lot of us focus way too much effort on the number below our feet.. That’s right, the scale. This number may be important in the grand scheme of things, but there is a number that is much more accurate than this at providing a measurement of health…

Body Fat Percentage, three little words that can change your entire attitude towards wellness. Your BF% is a number that provides you with the amount of stored fatty tissue compared to the amount of lean tissue (bones, muscle, organs etc..) in/on/and around your body. This number can be high or low; regardless if you are skinny, fat, or anywhere in between. Just because you have FINALLY dropped below 120 lbs, your BF% may still be above 25, which can create a lot of problems in the long term, especially if you have to cut out a lot of calories to keep yourself at what has been marketed as a ‘healthy weight’. Even the term ‘Healthy Weight’ needs to be updated, it should always be referred to as ‘Healthy BF%’, which can be found as defined by below:

From the American Council on Exercise

As you can see, if you are 140lbs, and at 18% BF you are still considered healthy! This means that you may be technically heavier than what you would like, but what you ‘like’ is based on an error in education! We want you to be as educated as possible, and this means understanding why a ‘healthy BF%’ is so much more accurate of a goal than a ‘healthy weight’.

One~ Body Fat isn’t just on the outside, it’s on the inside too. Visceral Fat is the tissue found inside the body, between the organs; and if it builds up it can restrict the heart from beating properly when stressed, it can prevent the lungs from fully expanding to provide oxygen, and it requires more blood which takes away from the nutrient delivery to organs that require energy to operate! Having a Toned Body means your organs are able to operate freely without being cramped for space.

Two~ Restricting Calories to Lessen Body Weight will diminish the body’s ability to fight illness and disease! Having a Toned body means you are fueling it properly, and each of the body’s processes are operating to their maximum ability.

Three~ Working on being ‘Skinny’ requires a sever deficit of calories, and Bone Density will begin to diminish right away; which if left over time can create issues with Osteoporosis – a condition where your bones are left brittle and easily breakable, and since you aren’t able to combat illness or disease as well, your chances of a full recovery are slighted. Having a Toned Body means your bone density will remain in the healthy zone, which will be resistant to breaks during most falls or collisions.

Four~ With less lean muscle-tone, your metabolism is going to be moving much slower, and since your metabolism slows naturally as we age, each day your body will be more prone to easily put on weight, and less able to take it off. Having a Toned Body means the added muscle-tone provides for an increased metabolism 24/7, and it means that more of the foods you eat are used as fuel, while the extra is passed and not stored! Also, continuing to exercise will aid in keeping your metabolism boosted so that you continue to feel younger, and look your best; Remember that we love Family & Friends, and that they are usually accompanied by copious amounts of great food & drink! Being Toned also means you are able to bounce back quicker from a weekend full of your Aunts Famous lasagna, or your Dad's award winning Burgers!

Five~ With all of the above considered, you must understand that your chances of becoming Obese (which is a medical classification, not a judgmental adjective) are much higher when you only focus on being ‘skinny’; where when you work on Toning, you will continue to ward off obesity, and all the diseases associated with it!

Now this isn’t meant to say that we don’t think people shouldn’t lose weight.. If you look at the obesity epidemic in the US, you’ll see that weight loss is as important as ever, but we need to be cautious about how we approach that goal. Cutting calories, Diet Pills, and ‘weekend juice cleanses’ aren’t the right answer; the right answer is a life of fitness – daily activities, a Nutrition Program rich in natural & healthy food choices, proper amounts of hydration.. all these things add up quickly to provide for a proper picture of wellness in the long term! And that’s what Tone It Up is all about, proper wellness for the long-term

Check out more of the Tone It Up Girls on Toneitup.com!

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