Personal Trainer Rachael Attard: Here Are 3 Reasons You Don’t Look Toned

A personal trainer has listed the three reasons why you don’t look toned even though you’re doing everything right.

Rachael Attard, from Sydney, said that to look fit, you need to have enough muscle and a low enough amount of body fat that you can see your muscles.

Rachael attributes the lack of overall body tone to three reasons and said she saw a big difference with her own body when she started paying attention to them and doing something different.

1. Stop doing just cardio

The first thing the PT said that you definitely need to stop doing is relying solely on cardio to keep you fit and looking good.

“If you only do cardio, you won’t build muscle and you’ll never look toned,” Rachael wrote in instagram.

“Tone is muscle, you don’t need a lot of muscle to look toned, but be sure to add some resistance training to your exercise routine.”

Rachael said her sweet spot is between three and four sessions of free weights or bodyweight exercises like planks and hill climbers each week.

You can then supplement this with a couple of cardio sessions, which may include walking.

Rachael is a huge fan of walking and her goal is to take between 8,000 and 10,000 steps every day. She said it’s one of the “best” leg toning exercises.

The first thing the PT said to stop doing is relying on cardio to stay fit and look good; instead you need to incorporate weights (one of Rachael’s transformations in the photo)

2. Stop eating incorrectly

The second thing Rachael said to stop doing if you want to look toned is eating too much or too little, which will result in a less than ideal physique.

“If you eat a lot more than your body needs, chances are you have too much body fat for your muscles to be visible,” he said.

“On the other hand, if you eat too little, then you’re hurting your metabolism (and hormones) and making yourself harder in the long run.”

If you want to calculate how many calories you should eat on an ideal day to lose weight, Rachael recommends that you look at the Harris-Benedict equation.

The formula is: 447,593 + (9,247 x body weight (kg)) + (3,098 x height (cm)) – (4,33 x age in years) – what it means for her height, weight and age if she lay down all on the day without exercising, your basal metabolic rate would be 1329 calories.

To lose fat, Rachael explained, you need to eat in a deficit (meaning less than you spend).

Ideally this would be between 200 and 500 calories.

Rachael shared why 30 minutes three to four times a week is the “magic” amount of exercise to do each week for a toned body, and why more than that is just a waste of time.

3. Embrace your body

Finally, Rachael said that even if you want to look a certain way, it’s important to just “accept the body you have” since you’ll never look like anyone else.

“Be realistic about your goals and expectations and be happy with what you have as you work toward what you want,” Rachael said.

Rachael shared why 30 minutes three to four times a week is the “magic” number of workouts to do each week for a toned body, and why any longer than this is just a waste of time.

Rachael said she used to “go to the gym for an hour or more six days a week” and preferred “super intense workouts” and hard sessions.

These days, Rachael prefers Pilates, yoga, short sessions (high-intensity interval training), and light weights.

But while he worked out “harder than anyone I knew, it didn’t seem like it.”

She has since discovered that a gentler, more balanced approach to exercise is much better for staying in shape.

These days, Rachael prefers Pilates, yoga, short sessions (high-intensity interval training), and light weights.

He also does not exercise more than five times a week.

“Overtraining, plus high stress from work, lack of sleep, and lack of downtime didn’t do my body any favors,” Rachael recalled.

‘Now, I really only work out for 30 minutes three or four times a week, plus I try to walk as much as I can, and I’ve never been in better shape.

“I also have a lot more energy,” she added.