I think of a swimmer. A swimmer has muscles, but they are not huge body-builder muscles. A swimmer is also typically thin. So, toned and thin. Yeah. Not anorexic-skinny, but the next step up.
Funny this came up today. I read the label on Jenny-O turkey sausage package labeled lean. 160 calories per link. 90 calories fat. Somehow that's not my idea of lean.
Lean. as far as a person, makes me think of thin and strong.
Lean, in a person or in food I eat means low fat %. So, take the "ideal" BF% for your age/gender and then go 5%+ below that. I think of that as "lean"--so lean for me means muscular sans much extra body fat.
Strangely, when I think of lean, I think of something that's weak and starving. You know, like Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. I think of poor Jack Sprat not getting any food to eat because he wife was eating everything in sight.
I prefer the word "slim" as opposed to lean, thin, skinny. But all of those words to me denote somebody who just IS thin, not somebody who actually works at it or has a level of fitness.
And while we're on the subject... What do you think of the word CURVY? This is another word that appears in magazines all of the time lately.....
Last edited by jellydisney; 02-16-2008 at 08:06 AM.