Ideal Body Secrets: How to train for the figure of your dreams

We live in a world where we have been fed the lie of, "appearances don’t matter.” As a result, few people are taught the essential skills it takes to look good, and the ones who do know about it are the ones feeling happy about themselves when they look in the mirror. Why should you have to go on any longer being unsatisfied? Let me tell you something, baby, your soul was put on this Earth to shine, but how can it do that when it is stifled by your shell? 

How many of you have wanted to do something, but stopped yourself because you felt bad about how you looked? Honey! A missed opportunity to find more fulfillment all because of your appearance?! I don’t think so! It is time to understand that your appearance is a part of your health; to deny it is to deny an essential aspect of your well-being.

THE GOAL

Where I notice most people go wrong is they have an idea of “how to get their ideal body” without understanding what result that action will actually give.

For example: Women often have this image in their head of a toned figure, with a small waist, and gorgeous curves, but they think the way to get this figure is just to “lose more weight.” No! That idea completely throws out the necessary details of your current natural proportions and what stage of size your muscles are in currently (but, we’ll get to that later.) This is why, in my Life Coaching sessions, I recommend taking a picture of yourself in gym wear or tight clothes, while neutrally standing with arms slightly out. This way you can see what stage your body is already at with fat mass, muscle, and proportionality to personalize your fitness regimen to you.

Then, here we have fun, you must create the vision! 

What I did is, I went on Pinterest and gathered up a few images that represented my ideal body to perfection! I put them into a vision board and I screen-shotted it for safe keeping on low motivation days. 

This is vital! Not only for keeping your goal in mind, but also to get a physical image of what you’re working towards. 

Now, this is controversial, but you’re becoming an artist of your ideal body, so trust me from one artist to another. Compare your body to the image, not to be judgy, but to be scientific. Notice what specifically is different, is their hips bigger? Stomach tighter? How do the proportions of their muscles give them this type of figure? I then take this knowledge and apply it to what I focus on in my training regimens. 

(We cannot deny the influence of photoshop these days, this is why I recommend getting multiple images from multiple people. Ie: You’re not going for an exact, photoshopped image of a girl with a 9-inch waist, what you’re looking for, overall, is a toned, healthy stomach. This way you can make realistic goals for your body, instead of stressing yourself out to achieve something that could not even be done with plastic surgery.) 

(When it comes to training specifications, for instance: Let’s say two women are going for an hourglass figure. One naturally has a small waist, but is lacking some “tightening.” The other’s figure is closer to a rectangle shape, in that their shoulders and hips are the same width. 

For women #1, focus on training transverse abdominis (or natural corset muscles) as well as the back. 

For women #2, Build more muscle on hips and shoulders, and avoid heavy training on abs as this can make the waist appear bigger. By training hips and shoulders we can easily give the illusion of a snatched waist without surgically changing genetic disposition, and you get to look in the mirror satisfied with the result of your body! Win-win!)

This is why it is important to be specific with the exact kind of figure you desire, because some types do just require weight loss, while others might need more muscle or even healthy weight gain. 

Know what you’re looking for to know what to put your focus on. 

Let’s start by breaking down some of my “cheat codes” for making these training styles personalized to you. 

WEIGHT LOSS: 

How do I identify if it is needed to achieve my goal? What is the effective way of doing it? If these are your questions, I got you, baby. 

Start by analyzing your body and then view the pictures on your vision board. If you visibly have more fat mass, then weight loss is necessary. What some people don’t realize, women in particular, is how muscle manifests itself on different figures. When we think of building muscle, we often relate it to that jacked body-builder all the men in the gym envy, but this is only one stage of muscle developed through years of commitment, not something you’re going to get from lifting your 5-10 lb weights 3 days a week. I’ll see women looking at Victoria Secret Models and thinking, “I just need to lose weight and I can look like that!” 

Girl, please. 

Those kinds of bodies are built in the gym, lifting heavy weights. The reason these ladies look different from the women in body building competitions, comes down to what size of muscle they’re at and their diet. The “toned” figure often comes from lower body fat with a medium amount of muscle. (Like Victoria Secret Models) Just enough to see the muscle, without it being too obvious to give a “strong masculine” look. 

If you’re already small in frame, but you feel you look “flabby” then muscle building will be the requirement to get the body you’re looking for, not more weight loss. 

Weight loss is primarily used in cases where the individual is overweight, has higher fat mass, or obese, if this does not apply to you then skip to the Re-composition section to learn about building muscle, without gaining weight.

(Weight, overtime, typically does not change with re-composition, only appearance due to altering the amount of fat vs muscle you have. If you visibly desire to be smaller, then stick with me on the weight loss section.) 

Now, for my babies who are ready to move their weight down a notch and start feeling more light in their health, let’s get into weight loss tips! 

I want you to be primed with a mindset switch:

“Hard or easy does not exist, only familiar and unfamiliar.”

This mentality is pure diamonds, because we are our biggest motivators. At the end of the day, you never really lose control of your actions, what we do is we negotiate with ourselves. “I shouldn’t have more cake, but I had a long day. I’m feeling tired, and my week has been stressful. Maybe it’s not the best decision, but would it really be that bad if I just had one more?” This entire mental negotiation as we pull the cake out of the fridge and grab an extra slice. We don’t like to admit it, but that was a conscious decision, don’t feel ashamed by that though, feel empowered! You made a conscious decision to get extra cake, you could make another conscious decision to not next time! This is what I am talking about. 

Losing weight is not hard, it is unfamiliar, because the habits we have had in the past promoted weight gain, and now we’re going to start building (familiarizing) ourselves with different habits. 

If you would like a full guide on how to do this with personalized training regimens to your preferred forms and methods of exercise, along with mastering your mentality and nutrition, sign up for Life Coaching at www.soulchiyu.com 

TIPS

• Tell yourself no: Remember that mental negotiation? Cut it. You’re a fierce lawyer who controls the exact outcome of the agreement, the next time your appetite primes a negotiation, you’ll say “we’re not doing that.” It is simple and makes all the difference. 

• Figure out how you got to this extreme calorie surplus in the first place: The most reported reason for weight loss struggle are battles with emotional eating. Understanding the trigger, and finding how to care for the emotion without food is essential. (I have tips on how to do this on both my “Beauty Potion” Blog, as well as my YouTube and Tiktok.) 

• Calorie Deficit: This is what I love about weight loss, the rules are clean cut. Consume less calories than you’re burning. You can easily get a daily estimate of how many calories you’re burning by calculating your Resting Metabolic Weight and multiplying your activity level. 

  
  

(This is one form of estimation, there are more accurate forms, but they typically cost money to access the information needed for their calculations, but if you’re interested, look into the Cunningham and Katch McArdle methods.) 

Mifflin St.Jeor Method

Women: 9.99 x kg (weight) + 6.25 x cm (height) - 4.92 x age - 161

Men: 9.99 x kg (weight) + 6.25 cm (height) - 4.92 x age + 5 

Activity levels

(Once you get your resting metabolic rate estimate, multiply it by the number that equates to your activity level.) 

• 1.2 (little to no, desk job)

• 1.375 (light exercise (light walking, gentle stretching, good/easy conversations while doing it. 1-3 times a week.) 

• 1.55 (Moderate, should get you a little out of breath, but not enough to where you couldn’t hold a conversation (some forms of yoga, pilates, cardio, and lightly weighted workouts.) 3-5 days a week.)

• 1.725 (High exercise most days of the week, heavy workouts with lots of aerobic movement, very active job, etc.)

• 1.9 (Extremely physical training multiple times a day, often specialized for athletes only.) 

(Even better bonus: set a timeline you want to have this achieved by and then calculate the estimated deficit needed to get the result. 

Ie: let’s say you weigh 150 pounds, and you’re going to lose 1% body fat each week, which is an average weight loss goal. 

(I would not recommend larger than 2% a week. )

 (weight must be in pounds to do this calculation)

• 150 x 1% = 1.5

• 1.5 x 3,500 (this # always stays the same) = 5,250

• 5,250 divided by 7 (this # always stays the same) = 750 calorie deficit a day. 

What this means is if you burn 2,500 calories a day (average) and you wanted to lose 1% of body fat a week, you would need to eat roughly 1,750 calories a day to successfully stay in your calorie deficit!

• Stay fulfilled: Hunger pains can be the most difficult when doing a calorie deficit, but lucky for you, most of these only come with ruined ways of eating. Focus on nutrient dense foods packed with protein and fiber to keep your appetite low. If you want to learn more about making your new diet a beautiful, seamless lifestyle change, check out “The Beauty Potion” blog on my website. 

  
  

(Another small hack: I noticed cardio is very appetite suppressive, and keeps my energy up, maybe it’s a form of exercise you’d like to try.) 

RECOMPOSITION 

Please welcome to the stage, the famous, the one, the only, body re-composition! If you invest yourself into any form of fitness content then you’ve heard about this term, but what people aren’t telling you, is the secrets to make it work well and fast. Generally, re-composition is for people looking to maintain/gain their muscle mass while sustaining low body fat; this is where the lean, “toned” look comes from.

There are a couple things you must know of before starting your body re-composition journey to be the most successful:

• Desired Appearance: Lean, and toned has an entirely different meaning from one person to the next, so go back to your vision board to get an image of what I am talking about. For most women, they’re surprised when they hear they must build muscle to get their desired look, because their desired body does not look muscular. This is why I break it down into The 3 Stages of Muscle:

Light: Only lightly apparent across the body. Enough to define your figure without being too visible. 

Medium: You can visibly see muscle, like abs, leg/arm muscle outline, etc. Not enough to where the muscle bulges. 

Heavy: Muscle is very visible because of low fat mass. Easy to see outline and shape. 

• How muscle builds: Muscle builds through being broken down and then adequately repaired with proper protein synthesis. The way protein synthesizes is by having adequate protein in the body to rebuild muscle with. This is why people recommend a calorie surplus when building muscle, because it gives the body the protein it needs to repair the muscle and build size. Now, if you focus on strength, the muscle does not necessarily get big, but it can become visible, especially during the calorie deficit required to lower fat mass and see the muscle underneath. 

• Size vs Strength: If you work on building muscle size, it will be visible at higher levels of body fat than if you rely on strength for muscle visibility. Most men often want to look big, and strong, even at lower levels of body fat; here again, training style comes into play.

• How you want to look is going to decide how you train. If you’re going for light to medium (stage of muscle) then we’re going to do the Re-comp Method. If heavy is more your style, go for the Spike Method. 

(One extra thing to note: If you already have large muscle mass, but are looking for a way to reduce fat while maintaining muscle, then you’re also going to want to try the Re-comp Method.) 

Re-comp Method:

• With this method you stay in a MINOR calorie deficit, (around 300-500 calories less than you burn.) with high priority on protein. Ideally, animal sources so you get plenty of B vitamins to help with that protein synthesis. Magnesium and Zinc are very important minerals in many enzymatic functions, so having a diet that hits your daily needs is crucial. (Spinach, Red meat for high zinc, almonds, oysters, dark chocolate for magnesium, avocados, etc.) 

• Strength and resistance training while doing this to either maintain or build muscle definition/density. 

Spike Method:

• One time period of bulking where you’re in a calorie surplus, building muscle size. 

• Once desired size is reached switch to Re-comp Method (Calorie deficit with protein synthesizing diet.)

(For a protein diet to be optimal for muscle gains, aim for 1.2-1.6g per kg of body weight. (For exact numbers, multiply your weight in kilograms by the protein number of your choosing to see how many grams you’ll need a day to hit protein goals.)

(One more thing you need to know to make this easier is nutrient timing. There has been a lot of hype around nutrient timing and "hitting your macros right after the gym."

This is another fitness lie.

It has been proven in many systematic reviews that protein consumption THROUGHOUT THE DAY is better for muscle growth and protein synthesis than eating majority in a singular window.)

HEALTHY WEIGHT GAIN

Some of us don’t like the skinny, toned figure. You want to look in the mirror and see curves, voluptuousness!  This one is for the angels who aren’t looking to put on muscle size, but just increase body weight in a way that is healthy. 

(For figure definition, to get that gorgeous, curvy look, muscle training is necessary. Without it, you will have a much softer appearance. If you want to be bigger, but with a clear and defined shape, hit the gym and that calorie surplus, baby! 300-500 calories over what you burn in a day with emphasis on protein synthesizing diet.) 

Healthy weight gain has 2 simple rules: Don’t do it dirty and eat above usual. 

When most people start trying to gain weight, they do anything they can to bring in calories. This is when they start pulling out the Twinkies, Candy Bars, White Bagels, NO! Eating like that causes the inflammation that makes weight gain uncomfortable. Get your diet in check and learn how with “The Beauty Potion” blog or my social media. (Or Life Coaching for personalized care.)

Eat above usual: You’re not used to eating more food than needed, and having a clean diet often means lower calorie foods anyway, but eating above usual does not have to be nauseating. This is when you must become a connoisseur of spices, fall in love with cooking! Creating a fun sauce, playing with oils and garnishes. This adds a whole bunch of those extra calories you’re looking for without feeling overwhelming.

 (Example: in my Snickers themed oatmeal, I just add some extra pumpkin seeds and peanut butter. They're calorie dense, but feel like they’re only adding an extra crunch and amazing flavor: Perfect for healthy weight gain.)

Look at you shine! Your knowledge is unmatched, now all you must do is put it into play. Take the action with the information you have and prepare to feel like you’ve walked out of your vision board! No more shame for your body, because it is becoming your ideal! The most fulfilling part of this, is not even seeing the figure itself, it is seeing the discipline and healthy lifestyle changes you put into practice to get here. You taking care of your body the way you deserve, that my friends, is the prize nobody thinks about, but is what makes it all the more sweeter.