Just to set the record straight, I believe that your focus should not be on the scale, but rather on the day-in-day-out lifestyle of making good choices and ensuring there is balance. That being said, I know many people do have their main goal centered around weight loss so hopefully I can help.
Weight loss is easy in theory, but difficult in practice. All you have to do is sweat buckets and eat clean! But what does that mean in terms of action? I'm going to focus on the sweat aspect since I've already touched on the clean eating aspect in an earlier post. Sweating buckets means making sure you keep your heart rate up the entire time during your workout. So, between sets you should be doing a short burst of cardio - running on the spot, jumping jacks, burpees, skipping rope, etc. This means you are constantly moving the entire workout with only 30 second breaks to drink water.
As a side note, weight lifting is absolutely necessary for weight loss. Many women believe that it's all in the cardio, but that's not true. Cardio is great for helping you lose weight, but without the added benefits of weights, you will not reach your goal as fast nor look as toned. Weight lifting allows you to burn calories long after you've stopped exercising. This isn't the case with cardio. Those micro-tears in your muscles that occur as a result of a weight routine, force your body to repair and make them stronger. This does not mean you will look masculine. Women have way too much estrogen and not nearly enough testosterone to bulk up like a man from a simple weight routine. So please do not limit yourself based on such myths.
I would suggest alternating weight and cardio days in a way that works best for your schedule. For the cardio session, interval training works best for weight loss. You will get a bigger bang for your buck if you do 10 30sec sprints over 10min than you ever could running for an hour straight! Time saver? I think so! The key is to keep changing the insult to your body as often as possible. If you have a heart rate monitor, you could base your rests on your heart rate rather than time - as soon as it slows down to a certain point, you can start your next sprint.
warm up 10 min - cardio (make sure you sweat)
perform some dynamic stretches to prepare you body for your workout
20 wide grip lat pull-downs
20 underhand pull-downs
10 burpees
(30 sec rest to take a few sips of water)
50 squats with overhead presses
20 low dumbbell rows
1 min hill run at speed 6.0, incline 10.0
(30 sec rest to take a few sips of water)
20 dead lifts
30 sec hold boat pose
50 bicycle crunches
1 min skip rope
(30 sec rest to take a few sips of water)
50 lunges with lateral shoulder raises
50 step ups
cool down 5 min - fast walk at speed 4.0
15 min stretching
Remember, this is just an example. It should be adjusted for your specific fitness level and capabilities. The point is that you need to be moving constantly with very little rest. And you need to SWEAT!
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Hello Samantha,
ReplyDeleteThanks for exemplifying that workout. I don't know what a lot of those exercises actually look like - is there a website other than youtube you can recommend I look at for videos or illustrations of how to perform them safely?
Thanks!
To be honest, I don't know a website off the top of my head with illustrations of these exercises, but I'm sure if you do a google search they will come up. These exercises are relatively common. In a future post, I will explain some of my favourite exercises in detail.
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