I run across many women with questions about home workouts.  Some of you work harder in the home than men do outside of the home!  You should be able to workout and keep your body as lean and toned as you want.  Here is a question I received:

Client Q:  “This is exactly where I am…if I don’t want to join a gym, what is your recommendation for an at home fitness plan? As far as diet, I try to stick to the 10 superfoods these days, but I seem to retain water easily. It’s very frustrating, especially when I’ve never had to worry about weight!”

Mark’s A:  There could be several reasons for your weight gain:

1) You can easily reach your fitness goals working out at home. I train the majority of my clients at their homes or places other than gyms. About all you will need is a stability ball and some dumbbells. The key for you is probably to speed up your metabolism.  Building muscle mass will speed up your metabolism because your body has to work harder to maintain more muscle. 

Muscle mass will also cause you to lose body fat and inches which is more important than losing weight (the weight loss will take care of itself).  This can be done best by lifting weights 3 days a week and doing intense cardio exercise 3-4 days a week. See #2 below.

2) Your body might have reached a plateau. Weight often comes off easily at the beginning of a workout program.  But then your body adapts to your workouts.  When this happens, you need to vary your workout routines and intensity.  Do different lifts for the different body parts, such as substituting bench presses with stability ball dumbbell presses or doing step-ups and lunges instead of leg presses and squats.

A shorter, more intense 30-minute full-body circuit weight workout will work better than a 1 hour weight workout when you are trying to lose body fat and weight. A circuit workout is one in which you do one exercise after the other with little or no rest between exercises. Also, change up your cardio routines such as rotating treadmill, bike, elliptical, stair-stepper and swimming.

3) It is good that you eat the “super foods.”  They are good for you. But you also need to track your daily calorie intake. You will gain weight even on the days you work out really hard if you take in more calories than you burn (i.e., maintain a caloric deficit). You need to know your basal metabolic rate-BMR (how many calories your body would burn each day if you did nothing).  Base your daily caloric intake on your BMR and activity level.

4) Your weight gain could be medically related. Sometimes an improperly functioning thyroid gland causes weight gain. Or, as is the case when we get older, our bodies don’t need as many calories as it did when we were younger.

I hope these tips help. Just follow the three basic principles I just discussed—3-days-a-week strength training, 3-4 days-a-week cardio exercise and maintaining a daily caloric deficit—and you will probably do just fine for yourself!

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“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

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