In this vlog, Julia Fedorin outlines her Summer 2021 "Tone‑Up" plan, emphasizing a non‑restrictive, mindset‑first approach to weight loss. She explains why weight loss alone does not guarantee happiness and stresses self‑acceptance, intuitive eating, and listening to hunger cues. Julia shares her shift from a calorie surplus to a slight deficit to reveal muscle gained previously, and details her 10‑week Epic Heat program (30‑minute weight‑ and body‑weight sessions) that she will review later. She promotes protein‑rich Built Bars (sponsored) and outlines strategies to curb evening overeating by eating solid, nutrient‑dense meals throughout the day, offering snack ideas. Julia highlights the importance of staying active beyond structured workouts—walking, swimming, biking, hiking—and how she uses walking for creative multitasking. She provides concrete meal examples, such as chickpea cookie‑dough breakfast, homemade burgers, and poutine, illustrating a balanced approach that includes favorite indulgences in moderation. Throughout, she critiques unrealistic social‑media body standards, encourages viewers to define health on their own terms, and urges them to prioritize well‑being over external validation. The video ends with a motivational message about self‑worth, community support, and the journey rather than the destination.
Chapters
Welcome to Summer Tone Up 2021. On this episode, I'll be introducing some of my goals and things I'm going to be doing to lean out in a healthy, non-restrictive, and balanced way without avoiding my favorite foods foods or exercising excessively, because believe it or not, you can still reach your fitness goals without overdoing it. Hashtag strong girl summer, here we come! What do you think when you hear the word weight loss? Is it calorie counting, restricting, avoiding carbs or foods with lots of sugar? Does it mean happiness, confidence, attractiveness, success? At this point, weight loss has developed so so many definitions, both negative and positive. I, for instance, would always view weight loss as something that would bring extra happiness into my life. But throughout the years, I've realized it's not losing weight that will bring content. It's your mindset from the get-go. What makes you think that you're gonna be more happy if you lose a few pounds if you're not happy with how you look right now? We should all try our best to move away from defining weight loss as a magical tool that will all of a sudden turn your life around, because the sad truth is, it's most likely not, and it's never going to be. If you're not accepting with yourself right now, if you only base your happiness on how you look externally, then you'll never find true lasting happiness. If you want to lose weight solely for the purpose of matching unrealistic social media body standards or to impress others, then you're doing it all wrong. From experience, weight loss itself will not make you content. I was at my lowest weight last summer and I didn't feel complete. I was seeking for more. I wanted to keep losing weight. If I didn't look like that Instagram model I look up to, then what's the point in trying? Only then I realized I'm never going to achieve the same physique as someone else, no matter how hard no matter what I tried. And you all probably already know that each one of us is different, but if that's so obvious, why do we keep trying to achieve someone else's body? Why can't I just focus on myself, of being a better, stronger version of me, not a similar version of someone else? One of my goals in terms of physique is to lean out, which I probably mentioned a lot of times already. For the past couple months, I've been eating in a calorie surplus, meaning consuming more than I burn. Doing this helped me gain some more muscle, and now with summer approaching, I want to shift my focus to leaning out, being on a slight calorie deficit so that the muscle I've worked so hard to achieve can uncover itself. So I guess my goal is to go on a little cut, but what's so different about this year is I'm going to do this cut in a very non-restrictive way, still listening to my hunger cues, eating intuitively and mindfully. Okay, so it's been a while since I've given you guys an updated workout routine. A few of you have been asking how many days I work out, my workout split, my favorite workout channels, what body parts I train the most, etc. So right now my workout routine is pretty straightforward. For the past 2 weeks I've been following Caroline Girvin's Epic Heat program. It's a program that lasts for a duration of 10 weeks and it centers around weight training and also bodyweight training. So with this program, you're getting the best of both worlds. What I love the most about it and why I actually decided to take part in it in the first place is because each workout is only 30 minutes. And if you guys don't know, that's my ideal workout time. I'm super excited to share my 10-week journey with you guys, and I'll actually be filming a full-length honest review on Epic Heat once I complete it. So be sure to stick around on my channel and stay tuned to see my results and journey to become stronger both mentally and physically. Protein is so key when it comes to muscle growth and just toning up in general. In the past, I've often neglected it and it really slowed down my progress, which is why I've been loving Built Bars. If you want quick on-the-go protein, then I would highly recommend them. Built Bars have up to 19 grams of protein and cannot compare to other brands out there. They taste more like candy, if anything, and will satisfy your cravings in a 100% guilt-free way. So what are you waiting for? Click the link in my description or use the code JULIAF10 to get 10% off your Bilbar order. Another thing I'm going to be focusing on fitness-wise to lean out is adding in exercise outside of just workouts, meaning I'm going to try my best to stay active and moving as much as I can. Walking, for instance, is definitely something I'm going to be doing daily on top of my 30-minute workouts. I also think walking is such a great excuse to multitask and get extra work done. Whenever I walk, I usually like to listen to French podcasts, brainstorm video ideas, and write scripts for my videos. I find that my most creative ideas come outside the house, and just something about walking in the fresh air, cool breeze, and sun makes learning so much more fun. With the warm weather slowly approaching, there are so many opportunities to stay active. I can't wait to go swimming at the lake, go on bike rides with the family, hike, and go camping. A big component to staying in shape is finding activities that you actually enjoy doing. If you aren't too keen on following workouts, then there's so many other ways for you to stay active, especially in the summer. We are here to make our fitness lifestyle doable and long-term, so make sure you find things that you actually have fun doing. Another goal of mine is to start eating more whole foods, i.e. Fruits and vegetables. Over the past few months, I've been eating a lot of processed foods. My whole diet has basically consisted of chocolate, candy, baked goods. And as much as I love all those foods, I haven't been feeling the best, most energetic self because of it. With that being said, my intention is not and will never be to cut out any foods. I'm all about enjoying everything in moderation. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm still gonna have chocolate cheesecake, ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies, but I'm gonna be a lot more mindful with how much I'm eating, and I'm gonna aim to balance those foods out with more nutrient-dense foods. I've struggled a lot with not necessarily binging but more so overeating in the past, and I still sometimes do, especially overeating in the evening, which I'm sure a lot of you guys can relate to. There's just something about late-night snacking while watching YouTube or Netflix that makes it so fascinating yet so unpleasant at the end. The big thing I'm starting to do to combat this unnecessary unnecessary overeating is having solid filling meals throughout the day. I know this could be hard for some, especially if you don't like cooking or just don't have time, but even just having lots of snacks, both nutritious and delicious, like carrots with hummus, crackers and cheese, fruit, yogurt bowls, cereal, smoothies, will really help reduce your late night cravings. Another reason why I'm aiming to eat a lot more nutrient-dense meals throughout the day is because I want to feel full. Snacking just won't do it for me. I find that whenever I snack, I'm never satisfied enough and food is on my mind almost 24/7. Instead of focusing on my passions, developing and improving myself in all aspects of life, the pizza or donut I could be eating is all I'm thinking about. While food is awesome, it shouldn't take over your life, and if it does, you might not be eating enough in the first place. For today's breakfast, I decided to mix it up and try something new. I have a ton of chickpeas that I got from Costco, and what better way than to use them to make chickpea cookie dough? A great high-protein breakfast/dessert/snack. This was definitely a very delicious and very filling, especially since I ended up using almost the whole container because half a cup was just not enough. I don't want to go too into detail with explaining how Epic Eat is going just because, as I mentioned, I will be giving a full review in a separate video. But I just completed week 1 and let And let me tell you, it's going great so far. This program has really saved me a ton of time, especially since I don't have to plan any workouts ahead of time. And it's nice to have a structured schedule to follow. Before her program, most of my workouts would focus on the full body, and now I'm putting all my divided attention to one specific muscle group, making it therefore definitely more effective. For dinner, we had homemade burgers with fries. You guys, I'm so proud of myself. I was finally able to eat one of my fear foods. This just shows that with time, you will progress. You will get better. Food will no longer control you. I think one of the main things that helped me go from fearing food to just simply enjoying every aspect of it is having the mindset of life is too short to fear the thing that literally keeps you alive. Could you please be honest? If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this video is that weight loss does not always equal health. It doesn't always equal happiness. And before you do decide to go on your weight loss, tone up, lean out journey, whatever you want to call it, really think twice. Are you doing it for you? Are you doing it to take care of your body? Or are you doing it for others, for acceptance, for attention, like more Instagram followers, likes, comments? What's your reason? And whatever you end up doing, remember but health and well-being your top priority. Even though I am going to be going on this tone-up journey, this time I'm really going to pay attention to how my body reacts, how I feel, because what's the point in losing weight if all it brings is grumpiness and low energy? Why should we even think about it if that's what we get in return for all our hard work? Did you think they wouldn't notice? My aim for this channel is to encourage all of us to be our best selves in whatever journey you're on— weight loss, loss or weight gain, don't rush it. Good things take time. And remember, it's not when you get there, it's how you get there. Today was a very sweet breakfast food-filled day. I didn't have a ton of savory foods other than having a poutine for dinner, which by the way, so bomb. I feel like a small part of me is saying, what the heck are you doing? Where are your vegetables? Why aren't you having salad, Missy? And I just feel like in general, social media portrays sees this healthy lifestyle to be a perfect everyday thing. You're either living a healthy lifestyle every day or you're not living one at all. But the way I see it, this healthy lifestyle, it's about welcoming all foods. There's no one definition of what this ideal lifestyle should look like. It's up to you to create one that fits your liking. You are enough and have always been enough. Don't let the number on your scale, your imperfections, and how you look in the mirror define your worth. A quote I found on the internet that I honestly think I think is so, so important to hear is, "You will never be good enough for everybody, but you will always be the best for someone who really appreciates you." And that really hit hard because you guys already know that you can't please everybody out here. So it's so, so important to seek the people who really uplift you, who support you, and who love you for who you are on the inside because that's the most important thing. Held your face.
