Are you looking for ways to lose weight and tone up?

Are you tired of spending hours on the cardio machines on the gym just to have loose skin and flabby arms?

If you want to have a toned and taut body, you need to be doing more than just cardio. This article will teach you a skinny fat workout plan that will get you in shape before summer.

1) Don’t Skip Strength Training

The biggest mistake you can make on your quest to attain your dream body is to spend all your time slaving away on the elliptical or treadmill.

Cardio is great for the health of your heart and lungs but you need to incorporate strength training if you want to tone your body.

Strength training is a great way to add muscle definition to your body.

Incorporate a total body strength training routine in order to increase your muscle mass and consequently burn more calories.

When you add muscle to your body, your body will burn more calories simply being awake.

2) Add More Protein to Your Diet

Eating protein is essential in building up muscle and getting a toned appearance.

It’s important that you eat plenty of protein in your diet, especially after your workouts.

After you tear your muscles down with a strength training workout, treat yourself to a protein shake or a meal that’s heavy in protein so that your muscles can repair themselves.

If you’re trying to put on muscle, aim for consuming one gram of protein per pound of your body weight.

For instance, if you weight 150 pounds you should be shooting for 150 grams of protein a day.

3) Do Smart Cardio

Just because you’re focusing on strength training doesn’t mean you should eliminate cardio altogether.

Instead, do cardio that encourages muscle growth such as incline walking on a treadmill.

Incline walking on a treadmill is a fantastic way to build up shapely legs and gluten. Incline walking is also far easier on your knees than running.

If you don’t have a treadmill handy, doing the elliptical at an incline can have the same results.

Cardio exercise is great for building your endurance so that you can strength train for longer periods. Cardio is also great for your mental health as it helps clear your mind and gets endorphins coursing through your veins.

4) Learn Proper Form First

As mentioned above, the secret to going from skinny fat to fit is strength training.

However, don’t expect to walk in the gym your first day lifting like a maniac. You need to learn proper form for each exercise first.

You can do this by either hiring a personal trainer or watching videos on youtube. Be sure to perfect the exercises with no weights before adding any weight at all.

An injury will only delay your fitness goals even further.

Once you learn the proper form you can add weights and keep adding weights until you become addicted to strength training.

5) Divide Your Strength Training Days

Don’t try to work on your entire body five days a week.

Instead, split up your strength training so you’re doing lower body two days a week and upper body two days a week.

Women are typically guilty of skipping upper body workouts because they don’t want to look bulky. Conversely, men are guilty of skipping leg workouts because they don’t think they’re necessary for them to look strong.

However, all parts of your body need to be worked equally in order to have a toned and balanced physique.

Plan your workouts out in advance and know which body part you’re going to be exercising before you even step foot in the gym.

6) Plan Rest Days

Gym newbies are often so excited to see results that they start overtraining.

Overtraining can be disastrous to your health and set you back tremendously when it comes to your fitness goals.

It’s important you take at least complete one rest day a week. During this day you should stretch your entire body and roll your muscles out on a foam roller to help relieve soreness.

In addition to your rest days, be sure to take 48 hours between exercising a particular muscle group. This means if you train legs on Monday you should not train legs again until Wednesday. This gives the muscles in your legs proper time to repair themselves.

7) Be Sure You’re Fueling Your Body Well

If you want to look fit and healthy you need to eat healthy foods.

Some people decide that they want to lose weight so badly that they eat almost nothing. This will cause your body to go into starvation mode and hang on to fat.

When you don’t eat, your body will start feeding off your muscle mass and all of your hard work will disappear.

It’s important you’re eating an adequate amount of proteins, fats, and carbs in order to fuel your workouts.

Make sure you get in healthy fiber and greens so that your skin will glow.

Follow This Skinny Fat Workout Plan to Get Fit Today

If you follow this skinny fat workout plan you should start noticing improvements in your body within weeks.

You’ll start to feel stronger from the strength training, and have more energy from the healthy foods you’re eating.

Remember the importance of letting your muscles rest and recover between workouts.

Enjoy this article? Want more reasons to follow a healthy lifestyle? Check out our article on the benefits of healthy eating.