Alex Johannsson

“I’m happy with my weight. I just want to lose my stomach and tone my arms.”

That came in as a listener question, but the answer is the same for most women asking it...

You can’t hold your weight exactly where it is and change everything underneath it.

Take your focus off the number on the scale and put it on how you want to feel when you look in the mirror.

So which comes first, losing the fat or building the muscle?

We usually start with the fat.

Because for a lot of women who’ve lifted before or played sports growing up, the tone they’re after is muscle they already have.

It’s just sitting under a layer of body fat they haven’t lost yet.

When I dieted down for my first bodybuilding show I lost about 25 pounds and looked smaller in person, but in photos I looked a lot more defined than when I started.

I hadn’t added anything.

The fat just came off what a few years of lifting had already built.

It’s the same for you. Lose the body fat and you’ll find out what’s under there.

If the definition shows up, it was already there.

If it doesn’t, now you know you need a real building phase, and you’re walking into it leaner and in a better position to build than you were before.