Gym Routine for Weight Loss and Toning Female (2023)

Written by Megan Ayala. Last Updated: August 16, 2022

The internet is full of weight loss and toning tips that promise strong, athletic legs, trim hips, and a tighter butt.

However, few of these tips will actually help you to get to where you want to go.

In this fitness guide, we take advantage of our collective knowledge of female anatomy and physique to come up with a solid gym routine for weight loss and toning.

Here are some of the results you are guaranteed to see in as little as 4 to 6 weeks:

  • More confidence in your own ability
  • Better fitness and conditioning
  • Toned curves, not masculine or bulky muscle mass
  • A tighter, leaner body with lower body fat

But before we begin, it’s vital that we share some critical information. This is definitely not an academic course, but knowing some basics about fitness training will assist you to take charge of your own gym routine and make the necessary changes to your own workouts as you move forward.

Here’s what you should know …

What Does Toning Really Mean?

Contents

  • 1 What Does Toning Really Mean?
  • 2 Will You Get Bulky and Huge Muscles From Strength Training?
  • 3 Using Strength Training To Lower Body Fat and Tone Your Muscles
  • 4 Strength Training Maintains Muscles While Dieting
  • 5 Fat Loss and Weight Loss Aren’t The Same Thing
  • 6 Losing Weight Doesn’t Mean You’re Losing Fat
  • 7 Using a Gym Routine to Lose Fat and Tone Up
    • 7.1 1. Build A Killer Booty and Become Leaner with Weights
    • 7.2 2. Use Progressive Overload To Achieve Your Goals
    • 7.3 3. Progressive overload is a necessary for weight loss, fat loss, and toning
  • 8 Toning Workout Plan for Females
  • 9 Is It Easy For Females To Lose Weight and Tone Their Bodies?
  • 10 Conclusion

Toning is a bit of a ‘loose’ term with a wide variety of related meanings, so finding the actual definition of body toning may not always be easy. However, understanding what the actual process is will assist you to approach workouts better.

Toning, in the context of body fitness and appearance, refers to activities that help you to shape your body. Having a toned body implies having just the right amount of body fat to allow your muscles to be easily visible without too much effort.

(Video) Cardio vs Weights | How to Lose Fat and Get Toned

Basically, toning is the combination of muscle building and weight loss. So, how do start toning your body? Well, the simple answer to this question is – Strength Training!

It’s that simple. It’s only by training your muscles that you can expose their true shape for everyone to see.

Will You Get Bulky and Huge Muscles From Strength Training?

Well, it depends. Female physiology doesn’t support the amount of muscle mass that a male body does.

Muscle mass is largely connected to testosterone levels, and women’s bodies generally don’t produce a lot of testosterone (Most women produce 15 times less testosterone than their male counterparts).

Even with really intense training, you are not likely to develop huge muscles.

On the contrary, you’ll get a nice, toned body that informs people that you are a true fitness enthusiast.

Using Strength Training To Lower Body Fat and Tone Your Muscles

The secret to losing weight exists way before you even hit the gym. In a bid to activate your fat cells to release all the calories inside, you have to attain a regular calorie deficit.

For every day that you consume fewer calories from food than you burn off via day-to-day tasks and physical exercise, you lose weight.

So, even without engaging in intense physical activity, you’ll lose weight if you are in a regular calorie deficit. The issue is, however, that you may lose some precious muscle mass as well. And, not only is this bad for your overall health and strength, it’s not good for your metabolism as well.

Over time, you may have trouble losing weight, and ultimately you’ll regain all that body fat once more.

Strength Training Maintains Muscles While Dieting

Strength training helps you lose weight in various ways, such as:

  • You Can Choose Which Muscles to Exercise

You cannot pick where you burn fat, but you can pick which muscles you tone through various exercises and physical activities.

  • You Can Get a Cardio Effect from Lifting Weights

Strength training in the gym still gets your fitness up and your heartbeat racing. However, cardio doesn’t offer a strength benefit.

(Video) Home Workout Plan for Weight Loss and Toning!

  • It’s More Enjoyable Than Countless Hours of Cardio

Studies show that you’re more likely to stick to your gym routine if you are having fun while doing it.

  • More Muscle Translates to Higher Calorie Burn

It’s not a huge difference, but being leaner means that you burn more energy every day. This helps you to burn fat by pushing your body into a calorie deficit.

Fat Loss and Weight Loss Aren’t The Same Thing

You’re probably reading this because you want to lose weight, tone your body and tighten up any loose muscles in your body. When it comes to your specific objective, however, it’s crucial that you know the difference between fat loss and weight loss.

How you plan your gym routine and diet may vary based on what your exact goal is.

Weight refers to TOTAL MASS.

When you check your weight on the scale in the morning, it shows you a numerical figure of what you are made of – your water mass, bone mass, fat mass, muscle mass and so on.

However, if you are overweight or not a generally fit person, losing total mass is still beneficial for your overall wellbeing.

Metrics such as the Body Mass Index (BMI) are important for women who carry too much weight or don’t work out regularly. It provides you with an indication of an ideal target weight to aim for, as well as your overall health risk.

Losing Weight Doesn’t Mean You’re Losing Fat

Dropping weight on the scale doesn’t tell you where the loss in mass is happening. It doesn’t offer you any accurate information about your true body composition.

So, if you lose weight without evaluating your body composition, it’s hard to tell if you’ve lost water, muscle mass or fat – or a combination of all of them.

It’s crucial to ensure that the majority of that lost weight is coming from fat. If you lose water, you’ll simply end up regaining this weight when you consume enough fluids.

Also, losing muscle mass is detrimental because a loss of muscle mass means a huge drop in metabolic rate.

(Video) How to Exercise & Diet Correctly for Your Body Type | Joanna Soh

Using a Gym Routine to Lose Fat and Tone Up

When you’re looking for a fitness routine to lose fat and become leaner, or simply address some problems areas, you need the right gym routine to achieve your specific goal.

Chances are, you want to shed excess fat, but at the same time develop a shapely silhouette and some feminine curves. Here’s

How you go about it …

1. Build A Killer Booty and Become Leaner with Weights

Full-body exercises are really effective for toning and calorie burning. You can target all of your key muscles in every workout session and also prioritize some specific problems areas too.

In this gym routine, we’ll put more work into your lower body. This way, we can assist you to develop a slimmer waist and curvy booty to accentuate your femininity. Because toning is the combination of muscle build and fat loss, you also need to push each muscle in a way that forces it to grow.

And remember, you don’t have to worry about getting huge muscles. We recommend that you choose weights that are challenging. You should go for weights that take you to the point of exhaustion in order to activate the toning process.

2. Use Progressive Overload To Achieve Your Goals

Choosing weights that push your body to the limit and promote a change in your overall appearance is highly recommended. Nobody ever got a sexy physique without investing a great deal of effort and time.

However, it’s crucial that you don’t work with the same weights week after week because they’ll eventually stop working for you. You’ll become demoralized, and it’s highly likely that you’ll quit altogether.

3. Progressive overload is a necessary for weight loss, fat loss, and toning

Progressive overload puts the body into a position that it is not used to. It forces your body to change for the better. When you can consistently attain your rep count, adding the weights just a little bit will help to keep your body moving forward. Apart from upping the weights, you can also attain progressive overload using the following ways:

  • Choose more challenging exercises
  • Add sets and reps to each exercise
  • Decrease your rest time between sets

Toning Workout Plan for Females

In this 4-week plan, we employ a combination of large muscle group together with target isolation workouts to strengthen, lean and tone your body. We put a lot of emphasis on your abs, butt, and legs.

The objective is to give shape to your muscles via strength training. You’ll boost your metabolism and shed that chunk of fat away as well.

You can easily add 2 or 3 cardio sessions every week into your gym routine if you want some extra conditioning and fitness work in there as well.

(Video) My Fat Burning GYM Routine (Treadmill Interval Running)

Something as simple as 20 or 30 minutes of swimming, cycling, or jogging will help you burn more calories. Based on 3 strength workouts every week together with a healthy diet, you’ll have everyone asking you what your secret is. You’ll soon be getting questions like;

  • Hey, what fitness routine are you following, you look amazing!”
  • “Have you been hitting the gym lately?”

Is It Easy For Females To Lose Weight and Tone Their Bodies?

Generally, females have a tougher time losing weight than males. This doesn’t mean that females cannot be successful when following a strict weight loss program. It just means that we may experience slower rates of weight loss than males, and many times, those challenges are due to reasons beyond our control.

Here are some reasons why females have a tougher time losing weight than males:

  • Females don’t have as much lean muscle mass

Females typically don’t carry as much lean muscle mass and have higher body fat percentages. There are several reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that women tend to have more body fat because it is useful in biological functions like breastfeeding and childbearing. Also, having a higher body fat percentage also helps you maintain regular menstrual cycles.

  • Women Experience More Frequent Hormonal Changes

Women experience more hormonal changes due to their menstrual cycles. These fluctuations can make you feel more tired or hungrier than usual. This can result in you eating more, which makes it more likely for you to gain weight if you’re not monitoring your calorie intake.
Hormonal fluctuations also happen during menopause and pregnancy, and they can impact women’s metabolisms as well.

  • Some Women Shy Away From Lifting Weights

If you walk into most gyms today, you’re more likely to find more men lifting weights than women. There may be a few women lifting weight, but many females prefer to stick to the cardio machines or attend group fitness classes.

This is not to say that society has not made strides in accepting females with muscular physiques. But, the majority of women still avoid strength training because they don’t want to develop huge muscles.

  • Women Often Have To Balance Family and Work Responsibilities

Even when women get assistance from their partners when it comes to raising kids, they are usually the ones preparing meals for the family, picking kids from school, and waking up in the middle of the night to feed the baby. Many women have full-time jobs to add onto all of this, too.

All of these responsibilities can way a woman down and leave her with no time to hit the gym. This can deter even the most determined women who may want to lose weight.

  • Women are More Likely To Be Emotional Eaters

While men can be emotional eaters as well, many studies show that women are more likely to eat fatty and sugary foods when dealing with stress while men suffer from decreased appetites [1]

Part of this is caused by the frequent hormonal changes we discussed earlier.

Conclusion

Being aware of the obstacles in front of you when trying to lose weight and tone your body will definitely help you prepare psychologically for the task at hand.

This is your chance to make some major changes to how you feel and look.

(Video) Weight loss workout routine | What I did at the gym to help me lose 70+ pounds | BEGINNER FRIENDLY

Remember to choose weight that are challenging. Stick to a rep count range of 8 to 15 per workout, and try to rest for 2 minutes or less between sets.

Also, keeping your workout sessions intense and short is an excellent way to boost your metabolism, lose excess weight and tone your muscles.

Sources

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4093980/#:~:text=An%20alternative%20explanation%20is%20that,only%20in%20women%20(29)