What Foods to Eat Or Avoid When You’re Trying to Tone Your Butt

Looking to tone up your derrière in the New Year?

Newsflash — no amount of squats is going to tighten and tone if you don’t have the right diet to match your efforts. Ditch the junk and commit to eating clean to getting the backside that you want. We know it can be hard, but instead of only focusing on what you can’t eat, emphasize and celebrate all the tasty, healthy foods you can include as part of a butt-toning diet.

Because nutrition is always first when trying to achieve a specific look, we’ve enlisted a few experts to provide some tips on the best foods to eat or avoid when your looking to tone your butt.

Eat more fat and protein.
The healthy ones of course. According to Vanessa Rissetto, a registered dietitian/nutritionist who specializes in weight loss, weight management, and medical nutrition therapy, “It’s important to focus on healthy fats: olive oil, avocado, and cheese, vegetables: broccoli, brussel sprouts, and kale for example and lean protein: fish, turkey, eggs, and chicken appropriate for your size.” This means if you weigh 120 lbs then you would get about 4 to 5 oz of protein at each meal but if you’re 200+ lbs then you’re looking at about 8-9 oz of protein at each meal. “It’s important to fuel the muscles that you currently have and also keep your metabolism revved up — protein is one of the best ways to do this,” continues Vanessa Rissetto. “Whole grains are also a must since when we exercise we deplete the muscled of glycogen (stored energy) and we need to replenish that so making sure you have complex carbohydrates like oats, brown rice, beans, sweet potatoes, and quinoa are wonderful sources especially since they have small amounts of protein as well so they are pretty nutrient dense.” Again the amounts are what are key — the serving size of these carbs are about 1/3-1/2 cup. When we pair proteins, and carbs together we ensure that our blood sugar is stable and that we don’t over eat at other meals.

Eliminate processed sugar.
It seems like sugar is found in just about everything, right? I mean, even when you’re trying to eat healthy it’s still in your milk and your fruit. The good news is, you can still eat it naturally, but it’s time to eliminate all processed sugar elsewhere. Sugar offers no nutrients and does nothing but pad your diet with excess calories that defeat your goals to build a more toned bum. “If you are looking to tone your butt, it is important that you modify your diet,” says Ariel Belgrave, certified health coach and founder of Gym Hooky. “This includes avoiding refined and processed carbs, which can deter your buttock-toning process – white bread, french fries, chips, crackers, snack mixes, sugary drinks, etc,. These foods are high in calories and low in nutrition, especially protein, a key muscle-building nutrient.” They key is in reading ingredient lists; foods that have sucrose, fructose, dextrose or corn syrup should be avoided.

Ditch the junk.
In fact, while you’re eliminating processed food, it’s time to eliminate junk all together. That means no: chips, crackers, candy, cakes or anything else that will deter your buttock-toning process.” Instead choose foods that will help build your butt muscle mass (high in protein and healthy fat!),” says Belgrave. This includes lean meats, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruit and limited dairy and whole grains.” Junk foods are high in calories and low in nutrition, especially protein, a key muscle-building nutrient. The problem with this is that this type of food can easily trigger overeating (eating at a fast food restaurant can run you over 3000 calories alone!), which ultimately will ruin all the hard work that you’ve put in at the gym.