What's the best workout to lose weight and feel strong in 2023?

One of the questions I get asked the most is, “Should I focus more on my nutrition or exercise if I want to lose weight?” hands down, I believe that you need to focus on your nutrition first. But exercise is also so important to a healthy lifestyle; so today, I want to talk about the best workouts for mamas to lose weight and feel strong.

Before we dive into the best types of workouts I want to talk to you about how you think about exercise. As you probably know by now, I’ve been working on a life coaching certification program where I’m learning to recognize and reframe my thoughts so that they serve me instead of hurt me.

As I’ve worked with busy mamas over the last eight years, I’ve seen two main thoughts stop women from including exercise in their lives. The first is, “I don’t have time to work out.” and the second is, “I hate working out!”

What I’ve learned about thoughts is that they become our reality. If you keep telling yourself that you’re too busy to work out, then you’re never going to make time in your schedule. And if you repeat to yourself, “I hate going to the gym.” while you’re putting on your workout clothes, and driving to the gym, then it’s not going to help you get out of the car when you get there.

Instead of dwelling on these thoughts that aren’t serving you, I want you to stop and ask yourself why. Why don’t you have time to work out? Why do you hate going to the gym? Is there anything you can do to change those circumstances?
Maybe you don’t have time to work out because you’re constantly committing to other things that you don’t actually want to do. Maybe you need to learn to say no to extra things so that you can say yes, to exercising.

And perhaps you hate exercising because you haven’t found the right type of workout. If you’ve been trying to get into running for years but you find yourself dreading it, then stop running! Stop forcing yourself to do something that makes you miserable! Because that’s the easiest way for you to give up and feel like a failure.

Just like in nutrition, you need to find the type of exercise that fits into your life. If hitting the gym for two hours a day doesn’t fit into your life right now, that’s fine! Find a class or online program that is quicker! Even going for a 10-minute walk can greatly improve your health!

But either way, until you address the thoughts you have about exercise and working out, you’re never going to make it a natural part of your life.

Resistance training is the best way to burn fat

Another thought that has been fed to women for years, which isn’t actually true, is that cardio is the best way for us to lose weight. 

Now, cardio has great benefits for your health, and we’ll talk about it in a little bit, but it’s not the most effective way to burn fat and feel strong. The best way to burn fat is through resistance training.

Resistance, or strength, training is important because lean muscle burns more fat than non-lean muscle. Lean muscle burns 7-9 calories per pound of body weight, whereas non-lean muscle only burns 5-7 calories. Obviously, the more lean muscle you have the more fat is going to be burned.

Lean muscle is built by tearing or breaking down the muscle through exercise, resting the muscle, and then eating protein to rebuild and increase the muscle. 

Women traditionally have been taught to eat low-calorie and do cardio, both of which don’t allow for muscle growth! What women actually need to do is eat a balanced diet that is higher in carbs (for energy to crush it in the gym) and protein (to build muscle) while progressively lifting heavier weights.

The really cool thing about strength training is that you don’t just burn fat while you’re working out like you do with cardio workouts. But you continue to burn fat when you’re at rest because it takes your body more energy to recover and build more lean muscle.

Unfortunately, as you age, you naturally lose lean muscle mass, which slows down your metabolism. When you were younger and had more lean muscle mass your metabolism worked harder to burn fat for energy. But now that you’re in your 30s, 40, 50s, etc, you need to make more of an effort to keep your lean muscle mass higher through resistance training. But the good news is that you can eat a little more as you put on more muscle!

Long story short, resistance training is vital for your health and fat loss!

Cardio has a place, but it shouldn’t be your main focus

Running, walking, yoga, pilates, etc. all have great benefits for your health.

Running and walking will increase your lung capacity, and are linked to a decrease in heart disease and high blood pressure. 

Yoga has physical and mental benefits like increased flexibility (aka fewer injuries) and stress management. 

Pilates will increase your core strength and can decrease chronic pain. 

These are parts of our health that shouldn’t be neglected. Cardio plays an important role in your overall health. 

Cardio workouts will help you burn a lot of calories, but as I mentioned before once you stop your workout and your heart rate returns to its resting rate, you won’t continue to burn calories like resistance training.

That being said, you can incorporate cardio exercise into a strength training program to get the best of both worlds. You will find me in the gym crushing a strength workout and you’ll find me riding my Peloton because I know that I need both cardio and strength training to live my healthiest life.

What I want you to realize is that you don’t have to spend hours on the treadmill to lose weight. In fact, if you’ve been telling yourself that you hate working out, it might just be that you don’t love cardio workouts!

A lot of women haven’t spent a lot of time in the free weight area of a gym because they were told they should be doing cardio. So it can be intimidating to start lifting weights. But mama, you are just as capable and worthy to be lifting weights and using those machines as anyone else!

If you are intimidated by that side of the gym, ask for a tour or a private trainer to help you learn how to use the different machines. You can also find great strength-based workouts for free on YouTube. You can buy weights as you need so that it’s not so intimidating to get started.

If you are fired up to start strength training but still have a few stories floating around in your head that you can’t control, then let’s talk! I can teach you how to fuel your body for strength training and teach you how to overcome those stories so that you can burn fat and become the lean, strong mama of your dreams! Schedule a free discovery call today!