Gaining Definition

I worked out for more than 20 years and only had minimal definition. I always looked soft. Why? Because I had body fat covering up all those muscles I had built up.

The only way to get definition, to be able to see your highly toned muscles, is to reduce body fat. And, sorry ladies, the only way to reduce body fat is to change your diet.

I thought that if you ate fewer calories, it didn't matter so much what you ate (as long as you tried to eat a relatively healthy diet). But a personal experiment has convinced me that this is not the case. What you eat is as important as how much you eat.

About six and a half years ago, my weight started to creep up. I was, quite honestly, appalled. And I was determined I was not going to let the trend continue. Through lots of experimentation, I reduced my food portions and then started eliminating bad foods one by one.

Although my goal was to lose the seven pounds or so I had gained in the previous year, do you know what happened? I kept losing, not only pounds but body fat. Instead of seven pounds, I lost nearly 30, and I wasn't even trying. I have since kept off the weight. More important, I have completely changed my body. All my life, I had a healthy layer of body fat. It was as if it melted off. A woman who hadn't seen me at the gym for some months said she didn't recognize me. Even my husband of 20 years said my body had been completely transformed; he never realized just how small I was under that layer of fat.

How did I do it? I'll save that for upcoming posts.

Stay tuned.