Some women tell me that it gets harder for them to shed unwanted weight as they get older. There’s no doubt that pre- and post-menopausal hormonal changes can put a wrench in a woman’s weight loss efforts. However, getting older isn’t a good reason to allow ourselves to get fatter. I believe that many women over 40 struggle to lose weight because we’re approaching it all wrong. Sometimes we just need to “tweak” the program a bit.

Many of us “boomer” women have lived through some amazingly horrid diets and preposterous exercise programs over the years. Remember the ladies “spas” back in the 1970’s that had machines with belts that were supposed to jiggle the fat off of our rears? Remember the grapefruit diet? If only they had worked………

But I digress. My point today is we boomer women have been brought up with a lot of misinformation about proper nutrition and exercise for weight loss. Even today, I hear my personal training clients and boot camp participants say that their doctors are recommending they add several hours of moderate cardio to their week in order to lose weight. That’s a huge time commitment. Now, I don’t think there is anything inherently bad with long, moderate cardio workouts, per se. But boomer women need to understand one major flaw in the “do tons of cardio to lose weight” mantra. Cardio does indeed use calories while you exercise. And then you’re done. Muscle, however, uses calories while you exercise AND all day long. Muscle is your metabolism.

Women of a certain age should do strength training exercises to lose weight! Did I just say that?? Yep. I did. Many women cringe when they hear me say this, as they believe they will “bulk up”. They cringe again when I show them how to do a proper squat (”won’t squats make my butt bigger??”). No, they won’t. They will make your butt stronger, and they will help you burn more calories all day long, when combined with other full body strength training exercises.

Should you ditch cardio workouts? Absolutely not. Cardio workouts should be part of a well rounded exercise program. I prefer short cardio interval workouts over long, steady-state cardio workouts, though. I’ll share some tips on cardio interval workouts in my next post. For now, hit the free weight section of your gym and pump some iron to keep the post menopausal body fat from creeping onto your body!

Need some help getting started?? Look up in the right hand corner of this page–there’s a workout there for you. Just fill in your first name and your primary e-mail address and I’ll send you a quick upper body workout you can do at home or at the gym!

Becky

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