PETITE WOMEN & TONING
CALLING ALL PETITES
If you’re a petite woman you may be familiar with feeling ‘light’ or even ‘slim’ but not looking as lean or defined as you’d like despite doing tonnes of HIIT classes and eating super healthy! If you are overweight you may be wondering why it seems so much harder for you to lose it!
There are important factors that make both weight loss and toning more complicated for petite women. Following generic advice for these goals can often send you in the completely wrong direction.
Weight Loss
Click to read IG post.
Smaller bodies burn less calories at rest than larger bodies, and women burn less calories at rest than men. This means petite, sedentary, women will be burning the least amount of calories of any common client type.
star
This is why you’ll often see incredibly low calorie targets for weight loss when using online calorie calculators.
star
This can make weight loss more or less impossible and attempting it can lead to nutrient deficient diets as there’s just not enough room to get everything you need on such low calories!
‘Toning’
Click to read IG post.
It’s not uncommon for women of a normal to lower BMI to still have a high body fat percentage. This will result in being a light bodyweight but still not feeling lean or toned.
star
The route most people take in this scenario is continuing to focus on fat loss and calorie restriction.
star
However the actual issue is more to do with low muscle mass rather than high body fat. Sadly, continued efforts lose weight are only like to exacerbate the problem.
the solutions
The first step is to identify whether weight loss is the appropriate goal, or if the focus should be on muscle gain.
star
If weight loss is appropriate, the goal must shift to increasing daily activity level and exercise first before looking to restrict calories. Once these higher activity levels are established, you’ll now be able to generate a more sensible looking calorie target for weight loss.
star
If weight loss is not appropriate, the mindset must shift away from restriction and cardio and refocus on eating to fuel muscle gain and strength training.
star
Building muscle while remaining the same weight will result in body fat percentage decreasing. This is the route petite women need to be taking to look leaner and more defined.
HOW CAN I HELP
While these solutions give the general point, the best approach can vary quite a bit for different individuals depending on their starting body composition and their own ‘ideal’ results.
star
For some it really is a case of switching to a muscle gain (and possible weight gain) focus. For others, weight maintenance with a focus on recomposition may be possible, while some may actually benefit from some weight loss.
star
If you’re unsure about the best approach for you, just drop me a message or check out my coaching page for details about the service.
faq: defining petite?
There’s no hard and fast definition of a ‘petite woman’. However there’s a spectrum by which someone may be more or less affected by these issues. Women will be more affected by this than men and the smaller and more sedentary a woman is, the more this will apply.