We’re talking all about fitness, social media and your weight loss. 

Here’s what happens. You’re on Facebook, or Instagram, and you’re seeing women in your feed who work out. Or you’re seeing different kinds of ads; lose weight, get shredded, do this plan, this program, blah, blah, blah. We’re constantly bombarded with these ideas that fitness is a quick fix and working out is the way to weight loss. 

First of all, you don’t have to work out to lose weight. However, it is a very good idea. If you are a woman who’s in her 40s and 50s who wants to lose weight and keep it off, plus not be a frail old lady, then you should start strength training, if you are not already, and/or become more consistent if you have fallen off with strength training. 

Social media can make us feel lots of feelings like;

• I’m too old, 
• I will not fit in, 
• I will look stupid, 
• Everybody else’s ripped, 
• I don’t even know where to start,

It’s very easy to become overwhelmed. 

Here’s a little helpful hint. You can curate your social media feeds. It doesn’t mean you have to block all of your friends or you have to unfriend people who tend to post a lot of before and afters or them on stage or on the scale or whatever they’re doing that is obviously triggering something in you that keeps you from working out. Ultimately we could blame social media, but we do have the ability to not see certain posts or ads. We can also decide to stop scrolling, because the more I scroll, I don’t feel any better. 

I could scroll all day, and then feel like;

• I’m not enough. 
• I’m not doing enough. 
• I don’t have enough muscle.  
• I am not the right body shape. 
• I am too far behind the eight ball. 
• I’ll never catch up. 
• Everybody else is better than me. 

That is the social media game, if left unchecked. 

Could I just delete social media? Sure. But I talked to my own staff, my own team, my friends and I connect with all of you on social media. So I want to use it and I want to be responsible for it and not let it take me off track. 

Social media is helpful. But if you find that you’re getting too much in your head, and you’re not taking actions towards becoming a woman who lifts weights or a woman who is physically fit, then we need to figure it out. Put a timer on, put some limiters on. It might feel like you’re being a parent with the iPad. 

I want to give you some real reasons why you should lift weights. Then you can decide what to do with that. 

1) Weightlifting or strength training is for building muscle. 

Sometimes you’ll hear or see this talked about as building lean muscle. In our brains, we think muscle is bulky. I don’t want big muscles. Good news, if you are a woman, you’re unlikely to get big muscles. We’re just not built the same way as a man. We don’t have the same type of muscle fibers and we also don’t have the same amount of testosterone. 

One of the things that happens on social media, and this is something I would call out is that we see photos, before and afters, trainers or somebody who got themselves in shape and they will post;

• Hey, do my 21 Day program and get these arms or 
• Hey, do my 30 Day program and get these legs or 
• Hey, train with me and you’re will be ripped like me, you’ll have a six pack and eight pack. 

That is misleading because there are plenty of women who are using performance enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids or cutting agents. They’re using things that are artificially helping them, not just build muscle, but also burn fat simultaneously. So it is changing their bodies more rapidly in a way that isn’t probably achievable for most women.

Performance enhancing drugs are not the same as hormone replacement therapy. They are at a higher level. They are designed to give you that certain level, that certain aesthetic, what you would see on that female bodybuilding stage in shows. Bodybuilding shows that are not natural that are untested. I want to put it out there because telling the truth is the right thing to do.

It is up to us as the consumer to look at an ad or look at a post or look at somebody and go;

• Okay, is that really true? 
• Is that really realistic? 
• Is she somebody who is building that muscle naturally? 
• Is she eating in a specific way that helps her get lean? 
• Is it a sustainable way that I could do it too?

Or is it just fitness people, whether they are actually certified trainers or not, selling us a bunch of bullshit. I think there is a lot of that on social media. 

My clients, women in their 40s and 50s, might be considering starting strength training if they haven’t, or getting back to strength training or being more serious about it. Keeping a training log, being more consistent overall, having something that a program that is moving you through your paces. We’re not just going to lift the same five pound weights for the next five years and expect that we’re going to build muscle. 

Many of my clients in their 40s and 50s are possibly considering hormone replacement therapy. When you are going through perimenopause or menopause, you might decide to go get bloodwork that shows if your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, thyroid hormones are down. If you want to not just lose weight, but feel better, have more energy, feel less brain fog then you might look into HRT. 

There are real reasons to take hormone replacement therapy that are not going to show up in a way where all of a sudden, you’re jacked, or you’re ripped. Okay, so you should lift weights to build muscle. 

2) Preserve muscle.

It is easy to burn off muscle. It varies with all of the different Quick Fix fad diets. I talked to a lot of women who are eating 800-1000 calories a day. You’re going to burn off muscle. Your body is going to go right to muscle as a fuel source and not have to go into the fat stores. Sometimes we think, well who cares? I weigh less. I’m smaller. But what we’re doing is we’re actually slowing down our own metabolism. We are smaller. We’re just becoming a smaller version of somebody who probably has a higher body fat composition. Ultimately that is not what you want. 

I know sometimes we trade it. We want that short term gratification and we forego the long term gratification. 

3) Become stronger physically.

Sometimes we think, why would I want to become stronger? Like why? I think partially the way girls and women are socialized we’re not given a lot of messages about getting strong. When you’re 5 or 6 or even 14, they don’t tell you that you gotta be big and strong. It’s almost like that save for boys. 

If you think about it, as a woman or as a human being, we want to be physically strong. I want to be able to carry my own suitcase. I want to open a jar of pickles. I want to be able to move furniture. I want to be able to do activities forever. So I have to become physically stronger. 

If I’m not becoming physically stronger, chances are I’m becoming physically weaker. 

4) Becoming emotionally stronger. 

The art, science or act of the action of lifting weights is helpful. It’s sometimes hard to lift weights. That’s why I think they call it lift and weights, right? It’s picking up the heavy things and putting them down. I picked them up, I put them down. I tried to pick up heavier things and put them down. I tried to do it safely. I tried to do it as often as I can, but not too much. 

We want to become not just physically stronger, but emotionally stronger by doing something that is a little difficult. Something that is challenging, gives our brain something to do other than dwell or ruminate on other things. There is something very beneficial where you tell yourself, wow, look at me, I’m lifting. I was doing bicep curls with 15 pound weights. Now I can do 20 pound weights. Something very satisfying there. 

5) Have a more robust metabolism. 

I can’t tell you how many women, myself included, probably think their metabolism is so slow. It’s really slow down. It’s broken. It’s not working. It needs to be fixed. What can I do? 

One of the things you can do is lift weight regularly. Here’s the thing. It is easy for us to blame perimenopause, menopause or age on a slowing metabolism. What is really happening is that as we age, a lot of women are losing muscle mass more quickly.

I will always include myself, I never want this to be like you’re doing it wrong. You did all those things. I did them too. Under eating, fad diets, quick-fix diets, anything where you’re trying to lose weight quickly. 

What’s happening is that over time, we are losing muscle mass, and then we are slowing our metabolism down. Then we’re going at it again. We just kind of keep going in a cycle. It can feel like you wake up at 40 or 45 or 50 or what have you, and think, what happened? But it’s been going on, it just reached a critical point. I have clients who reach this point at 39. I have clients who reach this at 46. There’s not one magic number. It doesn’t have to necessarily coincide with I stopped getting my period and then all hell broke loose. It’s an ongoing process. 

My goal here is to give you a kick in the booty to get back to strength training. And if you’re not already strength training, to get you started. So that you can have a metabolism that is favorable to losing body fat, and so you don’t have to exist on 500 calories a day in order to lose the weight that you want. 

Sometimes we think that in order to have a robust metabolism I have to work out a lot and that just gets us in trouble. That is simply not the case. Don’t let your mind run away and be overwhelmed. 

If you are starting a weight loss journey or recommitting to your weight loss journey or thinking about a weight loss journey. I would start with food, and I don’t mean take away all your food. I mean just address the food. Do I have enough protein on board? Because if I am going to build muscle I actually have to have protein. Otherwise the protein my body will eat is in the form of the muscles I already have. 

I would just make sure you are ready to go food wise.

• How many meals a day am I eating? 
• Do I have enough calories? 
• Do I have enough protein? 
• Do I have enough fiber? 
• Am I eating vegetables and fruit? 
• Do I have actual real food on board?

That is where I would start because I can’t jump into lifting weights and expect to have this robust metabolism when I don’t eat real food, eat enough, or have protein on board.

6) Improved body composition.

I think this is what gets people to go to the gym in the first place, I want to be rough, buffing, and tough. I want to be ripped. I want to be jacked. I want to be shredded. I want to have nice arms. I want the aesthetics of lifting weights. 

Here’s the thing, to get the aesthetic of lifting weights, you do have to have your nutrition dialed. If you already workout, you go to a gym, I don’t care whose gym it is anywhere in the world. You can go and you can see the same people workout over and over. If you did not know that they worked out, you would not know they worked out. You would not peg them necessarily for someone who they must work out because they are not necessarily very lean, or they don’t have any visible muscle. 

To get visible muscle isn’t just lifting weights, it is a combination of lifting weights, right? It’s a combination of progressive overload, where we’re just not lifting two pound weights, but we are actually forcing our body to be lifting more over time, and really dialing in the nutrition piece. You can’t have a toned, ripped, shredded body and not have nutrition on board. You can under eat, you can starve for sure, you can do that, and you will appear kind of to be shredded. But what’s happening is that you are also eating away whatever muscle mass that you have

7) Increased bone density. 

This is one of those things that we’re like, man, who cares? Bone density? Isn’t that for old ladies? Won’t I care when I’m 85? Well, by the time you’re 85, it’ll be too late. Too late. No bone density for you. 

The thing about increasing bone density is, and I know it does not sound sexy, you can’t see it. I can’t see my bones. Hopefully, at any time, they stay inside my body. So what do I care? If I can’t see it, it doesn’t matter. But here’s the deal, our bone density, our bone strength, bone composition, our body’s ability to make new bone is happening right now, based on what we’re doing or not doing. 

You wake up at 45 like, I don’t know what happened but my metabolism is gone. It’s been going on slowly. But when we aren’t that active, we don’t take a lot of steps, we don’t strength train, we don’t eat a lot of protein, we don’t have a lot of nutrition on board, it is very possible to have a decrease in bone density. Then when we get into menopause, our hormones start to decline. With decreased estrogen, we are in a situation where we could be losing bone. Once you lose the bone, it’s very hard to get it back. 

Trust me on this one. You can’t wait till you have poor bone density. You have to start working on it now so that you can stay active doing the kinds of things you love. Whether that is just going on family vacations during the summer and being active with your family or skiing or road racing or whatever you’d like to do. Your body is going to have to be able to take the pounding that would come from running or walking or hiking or skiing or skating or what have you. You can’t do it without your bones. 

8) Feel more confident and empowered. 

It feels good, to feel good. 

It’s ironic because it’s kind of overwhelming to think about lifting weights. Like how would I get to be confident and empowered when I feel very not confident and very not empowered? Well, because we have to start taking the action. I’ve never met a woman who has not told me through lifting weights and working on their physical fitness or their body composition that they didn’t feel more confident and empowered. That is one of the biggest byproducts of taking your health, body composition, physical fitness, wellness, seriously. You will create that for yourself. 

It doesn’t matter if anybody notices. If people compliment you. If you have all the before and after pictures or not. You will feel better because you’re getting those exercise induced endorphins, the feel good neurotransmitters from working out. You don’t just get them from running, but every time you work out, every time you lift weights, every workout that’s in the books. 

You’re also giving yourself a little dopamine hit. If you look at your calendar and you say wow, in October I worked out three days a week, every single week. Look at me. I can see it in my calendar. I put a little checkmark next to it. I have workout books. 

I’ve referenced this before. Workout books, they’re like those composition books you buy at CVS. They’re $1 on sale. But with inflation, they might be $4. I don’t know how much they cost now. But you know what I’m talking about. I would always have that in my bag, when I go to work out. I literally have some of those workout books from 2008. I have a lot of them. I can’t bear to throw out everything. By the way, everybody else in my house is a hoarder except me. When they’re not around, I throw everything out. Except I don’t throw those out. I can’t bear to. I just think they make me feel good to see all the workouts you did. The workouts aren’t special, some of them are probably a 20 minute workout, nothing great. Some of them are longer. Some of them are more interesting, or I have notes in there of whatever was going on. But that’s a big dopamine hit. 

You can feel better from your first workout. It doesn’t have to be five years in to be like I feel more confident and empowered. You can feel more confident and empowered just by doing that first workout  and giving yourself the checkmark. 

9) Self sufficiency in everyday activities.

This kind of goes back to being physically stronger, but you’re self sufficient. I don’t need help climbing up on my couch to change the batteries in my battery powered curtains, shades, whatever they are. That’s a real life thing. You just feel more self-sufficient in every way everyday. You don’t need people to carry a box up the stairs for you. You can do it.

10) Disease prevention.

If you look at research on strength training, you will see that strength training, lifting weights, will help lower your blood sugar. If you lower your blood sugar over time, you will have lowered A1C. You are less likely to have an incidence of diabetes. If you correlate diabetes, to the incidence of stroke and heart attack, and in certain cancers. You’re setting yourself up for a healthier lifestyle. 

There’s probably a million more reasons to strength train. You might have other reasons too, write those down. I think it’s very important for you to know why you’d want to do something. 

The question is, if there’s all these reasons why women should strength train, then why don’t they? Why aren’t I strength training? You might even be saying, Yeah, I know. My doctor tells me. I know, bone density, blah, blah, blah. I know. And it’s on your list, but you just haven’t haven’t done it. 

So why don’t women strength train? 

I think first and foremost, you might not know how. I think that’s valid, that you don’t know how. Especially if you’re like me, you’re in your 40s and 50s, closing in on 60. You probably weren’t brought up in a weight room. That’s for boys in junior high and high school. They have the guys going to the gym, they do it for girls now too. But that isn’t necessarily where we were at. They didn’t put us in the gym and say hey, here’s a barbell start chest pressing. So you might not know anything about strength training. 

What can you do? There’s a thing called YouTube. Now, the problem with YouTube, of course, is that you’re by yourself watching a video trying to figure out what is the form? There’s a lot of different nuances. How do I engage my core like there are? Things that you can’t necessarily get from a video, but it is a good start. You can find a lot of very basic exercises that would probably be okay to execute. 

You could find your local gym. Find your local YMCA or a Planet Fitness, and I get it, you might be in a more remote area. That is why I would suggest that it is worth going to your local gym and asking or calling them first and asking, Hey, do you offer a free intro? Or do you offer a discounted personal training package? Where I could buy some personal training sessions so I could learn some basics so I could go into the gym. I could start to learn how to use the machines for example, then I would start there. I would absolutely start there. 

If you are working out at home of course having machines at home probably not going to happen. You would probably get some dumbbells, maybe some bands, maybe a kettlebell. You could start very simply with your YouTube videos. 

I understand you might not know how. Like anything else, the way to know how to get help is to ask for help. Find a professional certified personal trainer or group exercise trainer who could walk you through basic exercises. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to be jumping, especially if you’re like, I haven’t worked out, I don’t think you should be doing burpees. I don’t think you should be doing plyometrics or jumping onto boxes or doing any of that. I think I will learn how to squat, how to lunge, how to do a dumbbell press. Whether that is doing it on machines or doing it with free weights, you’re probably going to need some help. So get help. 

Inside Self Made we have lots of programming for workouts you could do at any gym. We have videos. It is something that we do address. I like to think that Self Made is all things food, fitness, feelings, f*cking hormones and future self. It’s all the pillars that you would address at some point or another for long term weight loss. 

Why else don’t women workout lift weights specifically? I think this one is reasonable, afraid to get big or bulky. I’ve definitely heard from women every time I lift weights, I just get so big.

I build muscles so quickly. My pants don’t fit automatically. 

Here’s the thing. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay. You might even be afraid that you would get hurt. Fear is what keeps us from doing most things. Some of the fears could be real, and some of the fears could be not real. We have to figure out what is true. What are actual facts? 

1) Will you get big from lifting weights? 

The answer is no. I promise you, unless you’re taking anabolic steroids, you’re not going to get suddenly big from lifting weights. It is impossible. Could you gain weight from lifting weights because you’re eating more? Yes. I do see this happen, where we start bringing on board more exercise and then we find ourselves more hungry. We start to tell ourselves, oh, well, you know, I worked out today, I can eat more. I deserve a treat. We start to actually consume more food. Then of course, we’re going to feel like we’re bigger. So there is something you just want to have awareness of what is actually happening when you’re introducing exercise.

2) Afraid to get hurt. 

Absolutely. This is why I think it’s very important to start slow. You don’t have to do anything that is contrary to an injury or something that has been a problem before. I personally don’t do any kind of workouts where I’m jumping around. It’s also because if you think about it, women in their 40s and 50s need to reduce stress. We don’t need to add stress. 

Working out, if you think about it, is a bit of a stressor. We’re stressing our muscles so that they will break down. The fibers break down and then come back together with more. That’s how muscles are actually made. We don’t need to stress ourselves out by doing high intensity workouts or a million burpees in a minute. Doing all of these things where I’m not only trying to lift weights, but now I’m trying to go extra fast, I don’t have to do that. It is okay to have a little bit of fear on board. I just want to tell you, if your fear is that you will get too big you will not.

When you see women posting photos, and you can see their muscles, ie like bikini competitors, here’s what you need to know. One, they’ve been lifting weights for probably a long time and for many hours out of the week. They’re also following a very strict diet that has them dropping as much body fat as possible so that they look very muscular. If you saw them in person, especially with clothes on, you would never know. It is the combination of not just strength training, but also a very regimented kind of diet where you’re trying to drop a lot of body fat so that you can actually see the muscles. 

It is okay to not like it. It’s not necessarily for everyone. I would say out of 1000 women that I might know or talk to, probably less than 10 want to go that route. You will not get ripped from just strength training. You just will not. If you want that, I have a separate program for that. 

3) Hyper focused on burning calories. 

You might have the iWatch or a Fitbit or you’re watching the calorie count on your treadmill, and you’re just watching calories. You think well I burn a lot more calories if I walk for an hour or run for an hour or row or elliptical or do all these things. My cardio exercise is telling me I’m burning more calories than when I strength train. This is true. 45 minutes of me strength training probably burns less than 200 calories, easily 150 calories or something like that, based on my watch. When I do a walk or use my rebounder or something like that, it’s going to be higher. 

From a calorie perspective, you might see a higher calorie count coming from the cardiovascular workout but in the end, when you do strength training, you are building muscle and you are lowering your blood sugar. You’re putting a workout in the workout bank. You’re playing the long game for burning calories because the more strength training I do, the more muscle I build or the more muscle I preserve, then I am increasing my metabolism. I’m going to be able to burn more body fat in the long run, instead of thinking about the short term calorie burn from a cardio workout. 

It’s a little bit of a mindset shift that we have to move away from sometimes, which workout is going to burn more calories? That’s what a lot of women will say. I’m jogging or I’m running or I’m trying to sprint or I’m trying to walk/run my walk because it’ll burn more calories. Possibly, but you will probably have a better outcome, meaning you’ll burn more fat and keep more muscle and have a better metabolism when you walk and not jog. When you don’t stress your body out in that way. 

4) It’s not a quick fix. 

It’s the long game in the really long game. Now, here’s the good news. If you’re brand new to lifting weights, or you haven’t lifted weights in a long time, you will actually see results faster than someone who lifts all the time. It’s something referred to as training age. The more years you have in the gym, you have a higher training age. If you have less hours/gym time, you have a lower training age, you’re younger. And because your body has not adapted to the consistent strength training, you’re going to see results fairly quick. 

You could see results in three or four weeks. I don’t mean drastic results like, I lost 30 pounds and 16 inches off my body. But you could start to be like, Oh, is that my bicep? Oh, do I have a two pack of ABS? Yeah, you might start to see that. I think that’s fun because that makes us more motivated to keep going. But after a while, after three months or six months or five years or however long, you’re not going to get those quick results you want. 

You also have to make sure that you are constantly progressing because it is about the long game. I don’t mean every workout. You’ll get to a point where you just can’t get any higher. I’m not going to be able to do a bicep curl over a certain amount. I’m not going to get to 60 pound dumbbell for a bicep curl. I’m just not, unless I start doing anabolic steroids. So there will be some limits that you’ll reach. That’s okay, you could change things up. You could do more reps, more sets, more days of the same. There’s a million different ways that you could do some program changes in order to keep progressing. 

When you’re just getting started you might use five pound weights for a couple of weeks and then try the seven and a half pound weights. We don’t have to always be pushing more weight and we definitely don’t always need to change our workout. I think that’s a mistake that a lot of people will make, I need a new workout or I need to change my workout. No you don’t need to change it every four weeks. If you do change it, it’s probably going to change one exercise or the exercise order. 

I wouldn’t change everything all at once. That’s the whole idea of muscle confusion. It’s not the best way to get those results. I think you’re going to spend more time in the gym trying to adjust to a new workout. Where’s this machine? What am I doing? Just focus on the simple stuff.

Many people who do strength training regularly do the same type of workout all the time. They do squats, they do deadlifts, they do lunges, they do a chest press, they do a row and they do some shoulder presses.You’ll get to a place when it’s so simple that it’s just like drinking water, tying a shoe learning, or driving the car. It’s not like Okay, I gotta check the Owner’s Manual or I have to figure out how to put the car in drive. It’s just like this is who I am. 

It is a long game. It’s not meant to be. I’m going to lift weights for three months, and I’m going to get to where I want to go. 

5) There is a part of our brain that is going to tell us you don’t have enough time. 

There’s no time for this because in order for the workout to be effective, or for this to be worth doing, you need to work out for an hour. I talked to a lot of women who are convinced that the only good workout is one that is an hour. Anything that’s less than an hour is not right, is not good or worth doing. That is not true at all. 

Most women who aren’t getting on stage, who want to have a good metabolism, build muscle, keep muscle burn, use body fat for energy fuel, probably can lift two or three times a week for 30 minutes. You don’t need to lift for an hour, you absolutely do not. Maybe you want to, and sometimes that’s okay, too. You might have three days in the gym, and one of them’s an hour and the other one’s 40 minutes and one’s 20 minutes. That’s totally fine. You do have to obviously coach yourself through that. 

It is breaking down or shifting your belief thinking. The only way to get results from my workout is if it’s an hour and that is not true. I guarantee you. In fact, especially for women in their 40s and 50s you are way better off strength training for 20 or 30 minutes than trying to push yourself to an hour. Especially if you are experiencing what they think is some type of metabolic issue, you’re in perimenopause or menopause, you think your thyroid isn’t working, you’re not sleeping well, you have a lot of symptoms. That’s why a lot of people do get injured or they do get burnt out or they don’t see any results at all because we’re putting too much stress on our bodies. 

6) Intimidation. 

They find the gym intimidating. This is very common. If you’ve never walked into the gym, it can be intimidating. 90% of the time when I go to the gym, and it does matter what time I go to the gym. I’m usually there with guys. My gym actually has two sides to it. One side is definitely a lot more barbells and squat racks and where I would say many more men. The other side has free weights, machines and some cardio stuff. Certain times of day I am with men. A lot of time I’m with young men, like high schoolers and college kids. Again, it’s time of day. There seems to be more women around 9am. I think that’s when a lot of women drop their kids off at school.

It’s okay to be intimidated. It’s just normal. It’syour brain trying to protect you. Your brains like, you’re not in Kansas anymore. Like, where are you? Who are you? You don’t belong here. You don’t know what you’re doing. Everyone will look at you. Honestly, they don’t care what you’re doing. At all. Nobody cares. Nobody’s looking at you. Nobody’s watching you. I mean, they might be looking at you to be like, Hey, lady are using that bench? Are you done with those dumbbells? But honestly, nobody cares. I’ve been in gyms for 20 some odd years, nobody cares. 

Here’s what you could do. You could,

• Ask the gym, when their least busy time is,
• You could enlist a friend to go with you, 
• Have someone from your family or spouse to go with you meet you at the gym, 
• You could take classes at the gym.

You’re introducing yourself and your body to working out.

Maybe they have a strength training class. If they don’t then you could start taking aerobics or dance class and then move into the strength training classes. That’s how we get ourselves familiar with the gym and feel more comfortable at the gym. Eventually, you will not be intimidated, I promise you. At first you might be and that’s okay. 

You were probably intimidated when you got off the ski lift at the top of the mountain or had your first driving lesson or when doing anything for the first or second time, that is totally normal. Don’t let it stop you. 

7) It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the gym, and on social media. 

I tend to tie those two together.

We tend to think, 

• I need to do more. 
• I’m not doing it right. 
• I’ve seen too much. 
• There’s too many choices. 
• Should I do this machine or that machine?
• This way or that?

It’s easy to be overwhelmed.

Here’s the deal, you get to decide what you do with social media. You get to decide what you look at, what you see, what you subscribe to, what you follow. It’s totally up to you. Nobody is making you consume anything. Maybe there is a reason that you’re seeing some of these photos or videos or reels. Maybe they are inspirational to you, maybe you are getting ideas. But if it’s just getting in your head and keeping you stuck, then it’s time to cultivate and curate what you want to see on social media. 

Same thing at the gym. If every time you go, it’s taking you an hour because you don’t know what you’re doing or you can’t figure it out, then go in with a plan. Like, I’m just going to do these three exercises, literally just three, or these four. I’m going to rotate between these four. 

It’s going to happen that you could travel. You could be using a hotel gym, you walk in and you’re like, I don’t know anything else. I walk into gyms all the time, where I have to go walk around and look at the machine. I have to look around like, what is this? Is this a leg press? Is this a hack squat? I don’t know. It’s not my gym. I don’t know what this is. I need to go read the description. It’s normal. You’re not alone. 

The last thing I have for why women wouldn’t go to the gym and start lifting weights, we’re afraid to get hurt and we’re afraid to look dumb. I probably already covered that. Here’s the thing, you know how you will get hurt and look dumb. When you’re an 85 year old woman who can’t even get herself off the toilet. That’s how we get hurt. When we can’t perform regular daily activities because we did not take care of our body while we have it. 

Strength training is a great self care. It is time, energy and money well invested. It’s not superfluous or special. You don’t have to be a special person to go work out. You might have never done any type of strength training, so this is going to be a bigger hill to climb. But if you want to lose weight and you want to keep it off forever, this is a great avenue. 

It’s the long game. I’m not promising you, hey, you’re gonna lose. You’re not going to lose tons of weight just from working out. It is a great partner to eating food that serves your nutritional needs and your goals. Eating real food, eating protein, vegetables, carbohydrates, healthy fats, eating all the foods. Not just eating protein or not just eating vegetables, but eating something from all of the food groups. I get it, people are afraid of carbohydrates, or isn’t it a problem if I have too much protein, but strength training is a great partner to your food program. If you do not have something already done for food, I would start there. Then bring in the strength training. 

ABOUT THE HOST

Bonnie Lefrak is a Life & Body Transformation Expert and Founder of Self Made, a program designed to help you tackle the physical aspects of health and weight loss as well as the beliefs and thoughts that drive our habits and behaviors. It is her goal to help women create certainty in their own lives, their own results, and their own abilities.

Weight loss is not about the one “right” diet – it is about MUCH more than that. Weight loss is not about the one “right” workout. Weight loss is not about being positive and putting a big smile on.

Weight loss is about FEELINGS. All of them. Not trying to bury them or hide from them but knowing and allowing the full human experience. Weight loss is not about grinding hustling and will powering your way to some end line. Transformation (when done well) is done from the inside out.

By addressing both the physical and mental aspects of dieting and weight loss, she has coached thousands of women ages 30-55+ from all over and helped them ditch the mindsets that are holding them back, achieve permanent weight loss, and get the bangin’ body of their dreams.

Bonnie is an expert at Demystifying weight loss. She helps you u****k your diet brain. She is on a mission to help women love themselves, to find PEACE in the process of losing weight, taking care of themselves, and leveraging the power they do have to become who and want they want right now.

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