Workout To Lose Weight and Get Toned – While Dieting

Diet to lose weight, workout to gain muscle. Sound familiar?
When it comes to losing weight, your diet is the most important thing to focus on – period.
You can even lose weight without working out. However, it’s pretty hard (like impossible) to lose weight if you are in a caloric surplus … doesn’t matter what kind of workout you do.
So, should you workout to lose weight? Nope, not to lose weight. You should diet to lose weight.
But — yeah, there’s always a “but” — you do need to workout out while you’re losing weight. Why? Muscle retention.

You want to look good once you lose weight, right? Of course. You want toned arms, firm legs and a good shape, and that’s where working out comes in.
But how much working out do you need? Surprisingly, many people get this wrong.
When you are trying to burn fat (lose weight) you should not be focusing on building muscle. There’s no need to spend an hour a day pumping iron in an attempt to gain muscle while at the same time, lose weight. And you certainly don’t need that much time under the bar when simply trying to prevent muscle loss … which is the main reason for lifting weights while dieting.
When it comes to either losing fat or gaining muscle you will see much quicker results by focusing on one or the other. And since we’re talking about losing weight, that’s the type of workout we’ll look at now.
But before we get into an actual workout, here are three things you should know about lifting while trying to lose weight.
Failure is not an option.
Never lift to failure. A good rule of thumb is to have at least one rep left in the tank, sometimes two. So if you can barely complete a rep, you’re done. Don’t even try to force another rep.Keep the rep range low.
Ever heard that you should do 3 sets of 10-15 reps to get toned? I know I have. I think they might even be teaching that in some gyms still. Well, that is not true. Instead, you need to lift in the lower rep range. Somewhere between 3 and 5 is ideal.Don’t beat yourself up.
When lifting to maintain muscle and strength you need to avoid over doing it. Pick two exercises per muscle group and do 3-4 sets of 3-5 reps and that’s it. By the time you workout the same muscle group again, you should be fully rested and your muscles should not be sore.
So now that you are aware of these three things, let’s look at the workout.
First of all, let’s talk about the workout split. Perhaps the most common workout split is a push/pull three day split. This type of workout is largely popular with the “get buff” crowd.
It looks like this:
Day 1 – Chest and TricepsDay 2 – Rest or easy cardioDay 3 – Back and BicepsDay 4 – Rest or easy cardioDay 5 – Legs and AbsDay 6 – Rest or easy cardioDay 7 – Rest or easy cardio
This is actually a very effective workout for building muscle.
By grouping your pushing muscles (chest and triceps) and your pulling muscles (back and biceps) together you are able to focus on breaking down the muscle and hitting those groups hard. Also, this would require you to only work the muscle group once per week, allowing sufficient time for the muscle to rebuild.
All of this is good … for building muscle.
But remember, we aren’t building muscle. You can’t build muscle while eating in a caloric deficit.
So this common workout split is not even close to ideal.
Instead, I recommend a two day split. With this we can group one pushing muscle with one pulling muscle … pretty much the exact opposite of the previous workout.
The two day split we’ll use looks like this:
Day 1 – Chest and BackDay 2 – Shoulders, Triceps and BicepsDay 3 – Abs / easy-moderate cardioDay 4 – Chest and BackDay 5 – Shoulders, Triceps and bicepsDay 6 – Abs / easy-moderate cardioDay 7 – Rest
Remember, for each muscle group you should pick two exercises and do 3-4 sets of 3-5 reps.
For example, here is what day 1 could look like:
Day 1
ChestIncline dumbbell press – 3 sets of 4 repsFlat barbell bench press – 3 sets of 4 repsBackPull ups – 4 sets of 5 repsBent over dumbbell rows – 3 sets of 4 reps
This setup will not only allow you to work each muscle more regularly, but it will also promote better posture and balance throughout your body by working competing muscle groups.
But the reason I really like this workout split? It creates a harder, more toned looking muscle.
Working in the lower rep range is known as strength training. Strength training is great for creating strong, hard muscles.
The more often you work your muscles the more toned they appear. By training with less volume (sets and reps) but with more frequency your ultimately training your muscles to remain in a state of contraction.
Remember the “old-school” method of doing 3 sets of 10 reps to get toned?
Forget that approach if you want to look lean, toned and hard.
Lifting in the 10+ rep range creates what is often called “the pump” or that burn you get. Your muscles fill up with fluid and yes, they look good while you’re in the gym. But guess what happens a few hours later … you know, when you’re back to your real life – muscles are deflated and left with a softer, more round look.
So make sure you do some type of strength training.
As you lose weight you will look more and more toned. You won’t be simply losing weight … you’ll be losing fat.
Your muscles will not wither away as you drop pound after pound. You will remain strong, solid and healthy.