women are always like "i don't want gross muscles i just want to tone and firm up lol"
there are two things in your body affected by exercise: fat and muscle. reducing both makes you look anorexic. reducing the latter makes you look skinnyfat and you'll still have a belly (see: all women). reducing the first makes you look "toned". maintaining muscle mass on a calorie deficit requires you to stress those muscles enough to convince your body to cannibalize its fat resources instead. women naturally have more subcutaneous fat, so they can carry more muscle on the same frame while still appearing soft and curvy. in fact, that's the only way to achieve that look.
