3 Simple things women can do to start losing weight today.

The larger percentage of the Optimum Health client base is of female orientation over the age of 38 so I’m looking at starting a blog exclusively for that population. I’ll be telling you more about that in due course but in the mean time, I’ve go 3 great simple tips for all women who would like to see a reduction in there body weight and body fat.

I was recently speaking with a new visitor to our kettlebells class. As with any new client I ask them what they are currently doing in the way of exercise to gain an understanding of their current fitness ability. She went into detail about the many activities she was doing which included, running, cycling, using the cross trainer at the gym, and going through a 30 minute routine on the weights machines.  “I’m putting all this effort but I’m not seeing results”. I went on to ask what her goals were and she explained weight loss and toning up were here goals.

Here is what I said to her about 3 things she can start doing right way to starting seeing real results….

1. Stop doing loads of Cardio Exercise.

I know if may seem hard to believe but for females, doing too much cardio is actually counterproductive if your goal is to reduce your weight and burn fat. Many of you know my feelings about Zumba, but this also extends to excessive cardio exercises on the whole. To much “steady state” cardio exercise like running/jogging, cycling, using the elliptical trainer at the gym leads to a detrimental effect on the female metabolism and studies have also demonstrate beyond any doubt that in women, cardio chronically shuts down the production of the thyroid hormone- not what you want!

I’m not saying never to do cardio exercise especially if you enjoy doing it, however if your goal is to reduce your body fat and tone up there are better more time effective ways to achieve this goal.

If you love doing cardio exercise and refuse to exercise in other more effective ways, don’t complain if you still looking fat & flabby and not lean and firm. If you have to do some cardio, try doing no more than 1 hour a week.

2. Start getting to bed on time.

Lack of sleep or lack of quality sleep is one of the main reasons why females(and males) fail to reach their weight loss goal. From the minute you wake up to the time you go back to bed your body is working away to survive. All this work requires energy and maintenance of correct hormone balance. When you rest, its your bodies chance to replenish and recover from the days work, and you need sufficient time to do this. Studies have shown that people who sleep less than seven hours a day are 30% more likely to be obese than those who get nine hours of sleep or more due to lack of correct hormone balance. So try switching off the TV or tablet a little earlier tonight and get into bed before 10.30pm

3. Start lifting weights that challenge you.

In the above section 1. I said to stop doing too much cardio, the other side to that story Is to start lifting weights and weights that take you out of your comfort zone.

I know from my years of Personal coaching that many women have a fear of lifting weights because they think they will get big and bulky. I can say categorically this is not going to happen with the weights I’m asking you to lift. For women to see huge increases in muscle size and weight, they need a little help, both physically and biologically, something that I will not be asking you to do- unless you wish. Powerlifting anyone? 

Joking aside, many female power lifters do have lean, athletic body shapes without developing very large muscles. The point being, raising your metabolism and have you effectively burning calories, will be best achieved by resistance/weight training and/or metabolic training.  This type of training includes H.I.I.T training, Kettlebell training, body weight exercises, even working with resista-bands! As long as the exercise takes you to a point where you are working hard over a short period of time, resting, then going again doing the same or similar form of exercise, you’re going to get a much better metabolic effect and your fat burning efficiency will go through the roof. This is only a good this as you’ll quickly begin to see an acceleration of your bodies’ ability to loose weight and burn fat.

So in summary ladies, once you have established what you are really trying to achieve health and fitness wise, think about the best type of training for you. You may even save yourself some time whilst achieving your goals quicker and who wouldn’t like to do that!

I’d love for you to share this post with anyone you think would enjoy it.

Committed to your health.

Mike