Never Diet Again with Max Lowery

The Best Fat Burning Exercise For Women Over 40 (It's Not What You Think)

• Max Lowery

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In this episode, Max Lowery breaks down why most workouts don’t work for weight loss after 40 and how women can finally stop the cycle of exhaustion and frustration. Discover why high-intensity workouts and endless cardio sessions can actually sabotage your fat loss efforts—and what to do instead.

Max dives into the power of strength training for women over 40, how NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) can quietly outpace your gym sessions, and the real role of nutrition in lasting fat loss. He shares client stories, practical tips, and a new approach to movement that won’t leave you sore, starving, or stuck.

Whether you’re just starting or you’ve tried everything, this episode will help you find a balanced, sustainable path to fat loss that actually works—no punishing workouts required.



Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:  https://www.neverdietagain.uk/register-podcast

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Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://calendly.com/maxlowerycoaching/food-freedom-breakthrough-call



Max Lowery:

Exercise will change your life in thousands of ways. It literally is a magic pill for health and happiness, but it's actually a terrible weight loss tool, except for this one form of exercise I'm going to be sharing with you today in this video. After listening to this, you're going to learn why most workouts don't work for fat loss after 40, the three types of exercise women usually turn to, and why two of them actually make weight loss harder. But stay with me because I'm also going to share with you the one exercise that burns more fat, reduces cravings and doesn't leave you sore, starving or stressed. How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowery. I'm an author, personal trainer and weight loss coach.

Max Lowery:

In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and understanding so that you never diet again. But before I show you the best fat burning method, let's talk about what most women do when they try to lose weight and why it never works in the long term. I'm going to start by explaining the least effective forms of exercise, and then I'm going to explain the most effective at the end. So let me tell you a quick story. One of my clients, claire, came to me after trying everything. She was doing five HIIT classes a week, tracking her calories, drinking protein shakes, but still the scale wouldn't budge. And worse, she was exhausted, her joints ached, she dreaded her workouts and every Friday night she would collapse on the sofa with a glass of wine and a chocolate, thinking I earned this and she had worked hard, but it wasn't getting her the desired results. And that's because most women, when they want to lose weight, turn to intense exercise. They join the gym, hire a personal trainer or they start doing online hit videos and the logic makes sense Burn more calories, lose more weight. But here's the problem it's almost impossible to out-train a sub-optimal diet. It takes about an hour of hard, sweaty exercise to burn 500 calories, but you could eat 500 calories in less than a minute. Trust me, I have done this countless times. So we're thinking HIIT sessions, circuit training with virtually no break in between each exercise and endless cardio.

Max Lowery:

You may have been led to believe that this is the right choice, but it actually has two major negative effects when it comes to weight loss. The first is the physiological toll. So after a tough workout, your body is sore, stiff and you often feel exhausted. You might feel proud of yourself, but you'll also potentially end up moving less for the rest of the day. So instead of being more active, your total movement actually drops. And, even worse, this type of intense exercise makes you incredibly hungry.

Max Lowery:

Everyone knows what it feels like when you smash a hard workout session, so it's incredibly common to just eat back the calories that you have burnt because you are starving and you end up stuck in a loop of working out harder, being hungrier, feeling stiff and sore all the time and then wondering why the scale isn't moving. But it doesn't stop there because there's also the psychological cost. So when you smash yourself in the gym, it's easy to fall into the mindset of I've earned a rest. So you lie on the sofa, you skip the walk, you feel like you deserve that chocolate or that takeaway or that glass of wine because you've worked out and, just like that, you've rewarded yourself out of a calorie deficit. So essentially, the physiological and the psychological impact of doing these workouts means that you actually end up eating more and moving less overall.

Max Lowery:

On top of this, there's the stress it puts on your body, and when you're in your 20s or even your 30s, maybe you'll be able to bounce back. But after 40, things change. Your hormones shift, your stress tolerance drops, your body becomes more sensitive to physical stress and exercise is physical stress on the body. This added stress can disrupt your sleep, tank your energy, drain your motivation and mess with your mood and your hormones. And instead of helping you lose weight, it makes everything harder.

Max Lowery:

And perhaps the most dangerous belief of all this is you start to think that the only way to lose weight is to push your body to the limit, to grind, to hustle, to punish yourself, to smash your body, even when you're exhausted. But if that's your mindset, you will never enjoy exercise. You'll only do it when life is easy, when you have the motivation and when you have the time. And let's be honest, when is life ever that simple? This is why so many women end up quitting, not because they're lazy, but because the method they've chosen is unsustainable. Exercise should be something that lifts you up, not something that breaks you down. Exercise should be a celebration of what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate last night. But this brings us into the second type of exercise, one that's better for your health, your hormones and your long-term results.

Max Lowery:

So one of my clients, sarah, was 47 when she came to me, frustrated, unable to lose weight. She listened to a podcast and on the podcast it explained that women over 40 should stop doing HIIT and focus on strength and resistance training instead. She explained to me that she feels stronger in her body but she's not losing weight. And actually the scale had gone up. She was confused, worried she was doing something wrong, but what she didn't realize was that what she was gaining was so much more valuable than what she thought she was losing. Now don't get me wrong.

Max Lowery:

Strength training is incredibly important For women over 40, it's not just optional. It's essential Because as women reach the perimenopause and menopause, bone density and muscle mass decreases. Those things are critical, not just for how you look, but for how you move, feel and function. Strength training helps reverse that loss. It helps protect your bones, support your joints, improve your posture and preserve independence as you age. But here's the catch it is not a magic bullet for fat loss.

Max Lowery:

Strength training doesn't burn that many calories. During a typical session, maybe two to three hundred. That's less than a bagel. It's not nothing, but it's not enough to drive major fat loss by itself. But where strength training shines is what it does to you after the workout. It helps build lean muscle mass, and the more lean muscle you have, the more calories your body burns. At rest. It's like upgrading your engine your body becomes more metabolically efficient even when you're just sitting still. However, here's something that surprises many women. When you start lifting weights, the number on the scale might go up, and that's not a bad thing, because that increase could be muscle and not fat. So your body gets smaller, tighter and stronger, even if the scale says differently. The problem is many women see that number rise and they panic. They quit before they get the full benefit. But if you stay consistent, strength training can transform your body, not just how it looks but how it feels. So while it's not the best way to burn fat directly, strength training plays a powerful indirect role. It helps protect your metabolism, support your hormones, preserve muscle mass and bone density and makes long-term fat loss easier to maintain.

Max Lowery:

Really quick one for me, guys. I don't run ads on this podcast and I do aim to give you as many high value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never diet again. The way to do that is to rate, review and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me. But, more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else. It could help change the life of someone else. It's slower and more controlled. It's less stress on the body. It's usually done with full body movements using weights or body weight. You focus on form, on strength, on building your body up, not breaking it down, and if you're a woman over 40, this should absolutely be part of your weekly routine, alongside the most powerful form of exercise for weight loss, which I am about to explain.

Max Lowery:

But before I get into it, let's start by understanding how your body actually burns calories. So you have something which is called your total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE. This is the total number of calories your body burns in a day and it comes from four main areas. You have your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. This is the energy your body uses to simply keep you alive Breathing, circulating blood, heart beating. About 70% of your total daily calories are burnt just by being alive. It's not flashy, you don't feel it, but it's the biggest chunk by far. And the more muscle you have, the higher this number will be. Then you have TEF, the thermic effect of food. Every time you eat, your body has to work to digest, absorb and process that food. That process burns calories roughly 10% of your daily total. And the more protein you eat, the higher this number will be. Then you have eat, which is strange because it has nothing to do with eating.

Max Lowery:

It's exercise activity thermogenesis. This is what most people obsess over Workouts, gym sessions, spin classes, bootcamps, hiit sessions, whatever it is. And here's the reality this only accounts for around 5% of your daily burn. 5%, it's helpful, but it's not the heavy hitter that most people think it is. And finally, we have NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis, and this is your secret weapon.

Max Lowery:

It's the movement you do. That's not deliberate exercise. Walking around the house, your steps, pacing whilst on the phone, fidgeting, taking the stairs, cleaning the kitchen, gardening. This can account for up to 15% of your daily calorie burn. That's three times more than your workout. So if you're relying on a 45 minute workout to drive fat loss, you're missing the bigger picture, because the real game changer is what you're doing the other 15 hours of your waking day. That's where NEAT comes in no weights, no gym, no expensive equipment, no changing into active wear, no smashing your joints or punishing your body Just simple, consistent movement, something you're probably already doing, just not enough.

Max Lowery:

For most people. Neat burns more calories than your workout ever will. Look at this graph. It says it all. You will burn more calories getting 10 to 15,000 steps in than you will in a tough gym session without the soreness or the hunger spike. I've had clients who gave up their gym memberships and stopped exercising entirely, but lost more weight just by increasing their steps. They weren't sore, they weren't starving and they didn't feel punished and, best of all, they actually enjoyed it. Neat is the most underrated, underutilized fat loss tool for women over 40. It works, not just because it burns more calories, but because it's sustainable and enjoyable. You can keep doing it even when life gets hectic, even when motivation is low and, the best part, you don't necessarily need to spend loads of extra time doing it. You can build movement into things you are already doing. Because here are my five top tips to get more movement in every single day.

Max Lowery:

Number one turn your commute into an opportunity. If you drive to work park further away from the entrance, if you take public transport, get off one stop early and walk the rest of the way, and if you can walk the whole way to work, even better. I tell my clients that I can actually walk to work, that this is a gift. Honestly use it. Number two use errands as step boosters. When you go to the supermarket, don't look for the closest space Park at the far end. Do an extra loop of the store. Take the stairs, not the lift. These little things add up. They do make a difference. Number three take your calls on the move. Most of us spend time on our phone, whether it's for work or chatting with friends. If you don't need to be glued to a desk, stand up and walk whilst you talk. Organize walking meetings. It all counts.

Max Lowery:

Number four plan weekend walks with family and friends Instead of sitting down in the pub or a coffee. Suggest walking to the coffee shop or walking to the pub first. It's free, social, boosts your mood and your metabolism, and I'm sure your friends will thank you for it. And number five add anchor walks after meals this is one of my favorite tips Just 10 minutes after a meal, helps regulate your blood sugar, reduces cravings and gently supports digestion. You'll be amazed how effective this is done when you do it consistently. Remember the goal isn't to become a step counting robot. Don't get obsessed with your technology, because the real goal is to become someone that loves being active, that loves moving their body. Once that happens, you will get long-lasting success.

Max Lowery:

So, when it comes to fat loss for women over 40, not all exercise is created equal. Relying on intense, high-calorie burning workouts can do more harm than good for many women. While they sound effective, they can actually backfire, leaving you sore, starving and stuck. And strength training is not necessarily the best tool for direct fat loss, but it's a powerful long-term strategy for keeping it off. It builds muscle, supports your bones and protects your metabolism. And then we have the most underrated tool NEAT Walking, moving more, the subtle, consistent activity that burns more calories than your gym session, without raising your hunger levels, without feeling stiff and sore. So what's the best approach? It's not one or the other, it's the combination, the most effective, most sustainable fat loss strategy for women over 40 would be a combination of walking and strength training.

Max Lowery:

But what we do with my clients and my Live360 program is we start with just one thing, and that is steps. Then, once they've lost a load of weight, they build the habit of walking daily, start losing weight, feeling better and gaining confidence. And once that happens, they start asking me when can they start doing strength training? They're ready for it. It doesn't feel like a burden and now they've lost loads of weight it's actually way easier. And that's the magic with starting with walking it works, it's doable and it creates the momentum to make the next step easier. But here's the thing walking is incredibly powerful, but the single biggest lever you can pull for fat loss is still your nutrition, because remember what I said earlier it takes an hour of hard exercise to burn 500 calories, but you could eat 500 calories in 30 seconds. That's why, in this video, I'm going to share exactly how my clients eat to lose up to 30 pounds in just 90 days, without restriction, without dieting, without cutting out their favorite foods. Just click here to watch that video and I'll see you there.