In this Beginners guide to exercise for women, you will learn the fundamentals of exercise to burn fat, tone muscles and improve your overall physical well-being. Exercise is such a broad term and super intimidating for women looking to get in shape, but don’t know where to start. Learn the best and most effective exercise styles for you!

Benefits of Exercise for Women

The benefits of exercise are never ending. There is no doubt that our bodies were made to move and we function best when we take care of ourselves physically and mentally. Good news, exercise targets both!

Exercise helps you…

• Burn Fat
• Build muscle
• Increase cardiovascular health
• Reduce stress
• Decrease anxiety/depression
• Regulate mood
• Increase energy levels
• Improve sleep
• Boost confidence
• Improve functional mobility (lifting babies, carry groceries, walking up stairs)

*** Always consult with your doctor before starting any physical exercise if you have an underlying condition.

Exercise for Personal & Fitness goals

What are you working towards. What is your big WHY? Having a solid reason to why you would like to get in better shape is important as it will help you during the days you feel unmotivated. 

I Want to Lose Stubborn Fat

A calorie deficit is essential in burning fat. No amount of crunches or squats can outdo a poor diet. A calorie deficit may be achieved by one of few ways, eating fewer calories or increasing exercise. Weight training is another great form of exercise that burns calories and builds muscle tone.

Focusing on calculating your calorie needs using a TDEE calculator is the first step for fat loss. Increasing cardio is then beneficial to drive a bigger calorie deficit. However, diet alone can lead to a desired fat loss. Cut your daily calories slowly and by no more than 20% of your total daily energy needs. Cutting too much calories can result in a rebound effect and slow down the metabolism to the point where your body thinks it is in starvation mode and it will hold on to every ounce of fat, regardless of the deficit. Staying fit is a long term game and takes time, thus, focus on a calorie deficit of no more than 20%, which is a caloric deficit of anywhere from 200-500 calories a day, resulting in about 0.5-1lb fat loss a week.

Remember, you want to stick to a regime that is SUSTAINABLE. Crash diets and smoothie/cleanse diets don’t work because they are not sustainable long term. Focus on eating clean, unprocessed foods and focusing on high quality protein in combination with a slight caloric deficit.

I Want to Get Toned

Incorporate weight training to build tone and shape your body.

Any form of progressive resistance training will build muscle and give your body form. Exercise is 10-20% of the equation, nutrition is the other 80-90%. Focus on high quality protein and build your plate with protein in mind. Start with 3-4 oz protein, 2 cups non-starchy vegetables and 1 serving of fat. Incorporate simple carbs into your diet in moderation, as they are high in calories, low in nutrients. Remember, to loose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than you burn.

With any fitness goal, Nutrition is the most important factor. There is no need to spend hours in the gym, only to come home to eat mac and cheese and donuts. Nothing against mac and cheese, it just shoudn’t be part of your regular diet 80% of the time. Follow the 80/20 principle. Eat healthy 80% of the time and enjoy a few treats the other 20% of the time. I share plenty of delicious & healthy recipes to satisfy your savory and sweet tooth needs.

To measure progress, start by collecting baseline measurements. The best way to measure progress is measuring the circumference of your thighs, hips, arms, and waist. Compare your progress every 6 weeks. 

Weight loss alone is not a good indicator of fat loss because you will first lose water weight and it can be deceiving. The goal is to lose fat, and preserve and tone muscle. You may notice that the measurements are smaller, but the scale may show you are gaining weight. Muscle mass weights more than fat but occupies less space, so don’t feel discouraged if your weight is not where you’d like it to be. Body measurements are the most reliable form of tracking progress.

Basics of Exercise for Women

Exercise is physical activity or exertion which stimulates the body to adapt and become stronger. The stimulus needs to be sufficient enough to encourage growth, yet not so intense that it may cause injury. All forms of exercise either puts you in a caloric deficit or stimulates new muscle fibers to grow and create muscle tone, which increases metabolism. 

Every workout, no matter the style uses the FITT Principle:

• Frequency: How often are you working out? Three days a week, 5 days a week? Theres a misconception that if you workout everyday, you should be hitting your fitness goals 2x as fast. That is not true, the type of exercise you choose to do matters, and also depends on what your fitness goals are. It is possible to workout every day, and not get anywhere near your goals. It is also possible to workout 3 days a week, and achieve better success. It is all about working smarter not harder. Cardio is usually performed everyday to maintain results, while weight training can be performed 3x a week, depending how you structure your workouts.

• Intensity: How difficult is the exercise? If you are new to exercise, start small and progressively increase the intensity by: Increasing running/walking speed (for cardio), Increasing walking/running time, increase the weights of dumbbell or barbell, number of sets or repetitions in strength training. Manipulating any of these factors will increase the intensity of your workouts, thus preventing plateau’s.

• Time: How long are you exercising for? This is the duration of time you are spending exercising. Exercise times may range from 15-60 minutes, depending on exercise style and fitness goals.

• Type: This refers to style of exercise. Generally there are two fundamental categories that all exercise falls into, cardio and strength training.

Cardio= walking, running, dancing, swimming, cycling etc.

Strength training= Bodyweight exercises such as push ups, lunges, squats, sit-ups etc.

Now, let’s further dive into these 2 categories which all exercises fall under, regardless of the style. 

Types of Exercises for Women

Ok, let’s break it down. Don’t let exercise confuse you, ALL forms of exercise falls into two main categories: Cardio and Strength Training also known as weight training. There is also flexibility as the third category and this includes yoga and stretching, but today we are covering only 2 since they contribute the most to fat loss and muscle tone.

Cardio

Cardiovascular exercise or aerobic exercise all mean the same thing. Fitness terminology can be very confusing, it deserves a language of its own!

Cardio includes running, walking, swimming, cycling. Cardio may be any exercise that raises your breathing rate and heart rate.

Cardio is very popular among us women, however, there are no superpowers to cardio. Cardio is a form of exercise that puts our body in a caloric deficit. When we walk on a treadmill for 1 hour more than what our bodies are use to, we burn more calories, which results in fat loss. 

Excess body fat is energy in the form of calories that has not been used. A caloric deficit can be achieved with diet alone, in fact, in terms of fat loss, nutritional caloric deficit and one induced by exercise both result in the same effect. Cardiovascular exercise has many more benefits than fat loss through nutrition alone, such as heart health, joint health and improves endurance. However, there is no magic secret sauce to cardio aside from the fact that is helps your body burn more calories and builds endurance. 

Types of Cardio

HIIT- HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING

This is a cardiovascular strategy which alternates periods of high intensity exercise with short period of rest. This form of cardiovascular exercise burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time because maximum amounts of energy is exerted during each interval. An example of this would be, sprinting for 45 seconds, walking for 25 seconds, then sprinting for 45 seconds and so on, until exhaustion. 

HITT is a great time conserving high calorie burn exercise. This is perfect for moms with little time who need to exercise but don’t have much time. Fifteen minutes of HITT can burn just as much calories if not more than walking on a treadmill for 1 hour. Remember how we talked about the FITT principle, well the variable that we are manipulating in HIIT is INTENSITY. By increasing the intensity level, we can burn more calories in less time. This form of exercise allows women to work smarter not harder in the small cracks of time.

Another benefit of HIIT is the “afterburn affect”. When doing HIIT, we are not just burning calories, we are also toning and recruiting more muscle fibers to supply the high intensity activity. You will continue to burn calories long after you are done with the exercise. As your body repairs the muscle fibers, your body is continually burning calories and increasing the efforts of the metabolic system. Your heart rate will increase and decrease as you transition between the intervals. This phenomenon prevents your body from adapting to the activity and in turn, more calories are burned.

HIIT is definitely a style of exercise we should be incorporating more into our routines.

LISS- Low Intensity Steady State

Just like it sounds, this type of cardiovascular exercise is low intensity. The complete opposite of our friend HIIT. 

LISS is as effective at burning calories but over a longer period of time. LISS is cardiovascular exercise performed with light intensity over a longer duration of time. LISS is a physically more comfortable exercise to perform, however, it is very time consuming. Did I say time consuming enough? I’m not hating on LISS, and I do think everyone should participate in low intensity exercise a few times a week, but I think HITT is so much more time effective.

LISS can be a great option if you’re hitting the gym with a friend and you’d like to catch up for an hour or maybe listen to a podcast. It is also great for heart health and improving endurance.

Now lets talk about the type of exercise that every woman should be doing but are not…

Strength Training (Weight Training/Resistance)

Ok, I get it, lifting iron can be scary! Like what do you even do with a 10 pound dumbbell? I’ve been there, trust me… it’s a process. Long gone are the days when I first stepped into the “manly, sweaty” weight training area of the gym only to copy some exercises I’ve spied on earlier while on the treadmill. 

What we really want is to lose fat and build tone. Weight training does BOTH! It also speeds up your metabolism, because the more lean muscle mass you carry, the faster and more efficient your metabolism will be. 

Focusing only on cardio and walking/running on treadmill can leave you “skinny fat”. You will look thin, but lack muscle/tone and your metabolism will be super sluggish. Think marathon runners. They look very lean but generally don’t have a lot of muscle mass. Muscle is the driving factor of metabolism, and we need more muscle mass.

Ladies, I am here to teach you to not be afraid of lifting weights. Weight training is your new best friend from now on.

But, I don’t want to look big and bulky

Unless you are a body builder, competing for a prize and eating to gain massive muscles, you will not look bulky. Women do not carry the same amount of testosterone as men, therefore women will not become big and bulky. Instead, weight training burns fat, builds tone and the builds functional strength that we women all need. Not to mention, strength training builds lean muscle mass which increases your metabolism in the long run.

How to Weight Train

Body weight exercises are a great place to start with no necessary equipment. Some examples include:

• Pushups

• Squats

• Lunges

• Planks

Any exercise that requires you to work against resistance or gravity is weight training.

A basic weight train program includes sets and repetitions. Repetitions are the number of times you complete the movement using full range of motion. 8-12 repetitions is a great range to stick to for building muscle, tone and strength. A set is one cycle of a number of repetitions. For instance, one set contains 12 repetitions. Typically, each exercise should be comprised of 8-12 repetitions, 3-4 sets. 

Example) Upper Body Strength Training Workout

• 3 sets of 12 repetitions -Bicep curl.

• 3 sets of 12 repetitions -Upright row

• 3 set of 12 repetitions -Hammer curls

• 3 set of 12 repetitions -Shoulder press

Repeat each exercise 12 times (repetitions). Take a break, about 1 minute. Repeat. Complete a total of 3 rounds before moving on to the next exercise.

This is the standard approach to weight training. Keep repetitions in the 8-12 range, complete 3-4 sets of each exercise and complete 3-4 exercises per muscle group. Target each muscle group 2-3 times a week on nonconsecutive days for best results.

Rest is very important. Unlike cardio, which does not require rest days, weight training requires days of rest to allow muscles to grow. The best approach to strength training is to split up the workouts into upper and lower body. You can get as specific as separating each days into specific muscle groups, but we are not body builders.

I target upper body on monday/wednesday/friday and do lower body on tuesday and wednesday. This allows me to exercise 5 days a week and gives my upper body a rest when I am working on my lower body, vise versa.

These are all examples, I encourage you to find a schedule that works for you and meets your goals.

Download my 4 – week exercise guide and build strength in the comfort of your own home. No gym or equipment needed. Just print or download the guide, take body measurements as a baseline and commit to show up daily for a better stronger you!

****INSERT BLOOM OPT IN FOR ECERCISE GUIDE

Circuit Training

Another form of weight training that I find very exciting and time effective is Circuit Training. Circuit training is comprised of rounds. Each exercise moves into the next consecutive exercise with no breaks. You can get very creative with circuit training and you can even blend cardio and weight training together. Or you may those to stick with weight training style circuit entirely. 

A circuit has anywhere from 5-10 exercises in a single round and is repeated 3-5 times.

Here is an example of an upper body circuit:

• 10 pushups
• 10 bicep curls
• 10 tricep dips
• 10 shoulder press
• 10 latteral raise

Complete each exercise consecutively, rest 1-2 mins, repeat the circuit 3 times.

Circuit training is very versatile and can be done using repetitions or time intervals. Instead of doing 10 repetitions, you would complete each exercise for 45 seconds and then moving on to the next. This approach is similar to HITT, and as you can see, different types of exercise have many similarities. 

Lets Summarize:

All styles of exercise have 4 components (FITT Principle)

-Frequency, Intensity, Time, Type of Exercise.

Cardio burns calories by putting you in a caloric deficit, and tapping into your body’s fat stores.You will burn fat as long as you aren’t eating more than what you burn. Two types of cardio are HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) which burns calories in a short period of time with short bursts of intense activity followed by shortbreaks. HIIT also builds lean muscle mass, similar to weight training which in turn increases your metabolism. LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) is another form of Cardio which burns calories over a longer period of time because the exercise is steady and minimal in intensity such as walking or jogging. Out of the two, HITT is the most time effective.

Weight and strength training are exercises that work against resistance or gravity. Resistance can be obtained using body weight such as pushups or using weights such as in a bicep curl. Basic Rules for weight training are:

• 8-12 repetitions
• 3-4 sets, taking breaks after each set (1-2 mins)
• 3-4 exercises per muscle group

For best results, workout out each muscle group 2x a week on non consecutive days. Rest is essential for muscle repair.

Circuit training is a form of strength training that includes rounds with no rest periods between exercises. Circuits can also incorporate both strength training and cardio. Circuit training is a great use of time as you are working out multiple muscle groups through compound or isolation movements. 

Stock up on a pair or two of dumbbells, a yoga mat and let’s get lifting!

Comment down below your questions or thoughts on exercise!