The Best Workout Split for Fat Loss After 40 | Ep. 41

In this episode, Soraya breaks down the exact weekly workout split that helps women over 40 finally lose fat and build a strong, lean body. If you've been working hard but not seeing progress, this episode will completely change how you approach exercise.

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Transcript

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Are you exercising consistently but still not seeing the results that you want? Today we're going to be going over the best workout split for women over 40 because what worked in your early 30s is not going to work the same anymore. Welcome to the Fit and Fulfilled Show. If you're a busy professional woman who wants to finally prioritize your health and happiness, this is the place to be. I'm your host, Soraya Russell, certified macronutrition coach, mindset coach, and lifestyle transformation coach. And each week I share practical strategies to help you build sustainable habits, boost your energy, become obsessed with what you see when you look in the mirror, and feel confident and strong in your body. All without feeling stressed, burned out, or guilty. Let's dive in. So if you're listening to this, you're probably over 35, over 40, and either you're working out regularly but not seeing results from all the hard work you're putting in, or you're not very active right now, but you're trying to figure out, okay, I want to get active, but what are the best activities for me to do to see results at my age? We're gonna go over what works best for both of these scenarios. So the first thing you might be wondering is why do I have to have a different approach after 40? So one of the things that happens is estrogen, a hormone in your body starts to decline. This is gonna change how your body stores fat and preserves muscle. Another thing that's probably happening is your cortisol levels are rising. And so cortisol is what's called your stress hormone. So they're already rising, probably because you're stressed day to day with whether it's work or kids or family. But on top of that, if you're doing a lot of high-intensity exercises like running or HIT, that's also going to be raising your cortisol levels as well. So we want to avoid workouts that are going to further agitate our already high cortisol levels. On top of that, muscle loss also accelerates after 40. You typically lose about 3 to 8% of your muscle mass per decade if you're not doing anything to preserve it. And when you see a decrease in muscle mass, that tends to lead to an increase in fat mass, especially around your midsection. Your body's also going to require more rest and more breaks between sessions so that you prevent injury. So earlier on in your 20s or early 30s, you might have worked out five days, six days, seven days a week with no rest. You really should not be doing that, honestly at all. I think that everyone needs to have rest in between workouts. But especially if you're over 40, you definitely need to prioritize rest because a lack of rest, a lack of sleep is going to increase stress, which is gonna increase cortisol levels. So I've had clients who, before they were working with me, were doing, you know, some sort of intense workout like CrossFit seven days a week in their late 40s. And I'm like, I know you enjoy CrossFit, we're not gonna cut it out, but we need to add in rest. And with this exact client that I'm talking about, by adding in rest days, she started losing weight, which shocked her. She's like, I'm not even working out as much as I was before and I'm losing weight. It's because her body needed adequate rest to lower those cortisol levels and having rest between her workouts helped her get in better workouts, which helped her build more muscle and thus lose that stubborn belly fat, especially around her midsection. So let's go over the ideal workout split for fat loss after 40. You want to prioritize three strength training sessions per week. You can also do four if you're a bit more experienced, but if you're more of a beginner, intermediate, I would start with three because this gives you plenty of rest days. Now, why should you prioritize strength training? Because you might have heard people talk about strength training and lifting weights before, but here's why it's really important. So as you get older, muscle tends to account for less of your body composition, hence, fat accounts for more. So women come to me saying, I want to lose 10, 15, 20, 30 pounds. And many times they don't even need to lose that much weight. They need to reduce their fat and build muscle, basically recomp their body, what strength training does. Because you don't just want to be smaller, you want to be smaller and more toned and more lean. And that just doesn't come down to losing weight. It comes down to losing fat and building muscle, what strength training helps you do. On top of that, what happens is strength training helps you build muscle, and muscle is more active than fat. What this means is simply by having more muscle on your body, you will burn more calories on a day-to-day basis and you have a faster metabolism. And when you have a faster metabolism as you get older, it's much easier to keep the weight off. So, for example, if you go on vacation, say that you have a good amount of muscle on your body and you go on vacation and eat a little bit more than usual, you'll still be able to maintain your weight because that muscle on your body is more active than fat. But if you go on vacation and you have more fat mass than muscle mass, you might end up gaining a couple pounds because you don't have as fast of a metabolism because you don't have as much muscle. And when I say muscle, I don't mean you have to be big and jacked and all this stuff. I know that's not what you want. I just mean having lean muscle. Like you know, when you see the girls with the the toned tight arms, the back, the firm toned legs, the plump booty, that's what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to be big, huge muscles. It just means having that lean toned look that I'm sure you're going for. So with these three days a week, you want to have at least one rest day between each session so you get adequate rest before doing your next workout. And to explain this very simply, if you're new to exercise, if you work out one time, you're gonna be sore for like at least one or two days. And so if you try to work out again the next day, it's gonna be very hard and you're gonna hate working out. You're like, working out sucks, it hurts, I'm sore. But that's because you're not building an adequate rest. So for example, you want to work out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or a Monday, Thursday, and Sunday. So, well, actually, there's not a break between Sunday and Monday. So Monday, Wednesday, and maybe uh Saturday, right? So always have at least one rest day between each workout session. If you instead wanted to do four days a week, you're a bit more advanced. I would say Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. But the biggest thing is if you have two workouts back to back, make sure you're not working the same muscle. So for example, if Friday you're doing upper body, then Saturday do lower body. But don't do two lower body days back to back. That can lead to a lot of soreness, injury, and you're just not gonna get as good of a workout in. So when you have rest in between your workout days, you just get better workouts in because you're rested, your muscles are rested, and so you can lift heavier without having to worry about being sore, tired, or potentially injuring yourself. So we're focusing on three to four days a week, um, rest days in between. The next thing you want to do is think about how long the workout should take. You don't need to work out for more than 45 minutes when it comes to lifting weights. You don't. If you're trying to compete for a bodybuilding show or you're trying to compete in a bikini competition, yes, maybe your workouts need to be longer. But for a lot of my clients who just want to feel better in their clothes, lose fat, build muscle, 45 minutes per strength training session is all you need. That is not a lot of your time. Three times a week, 45 minutes, you can absolutely build that in. So the reason I say 45 minutes is because with each session, you only really need to do about four exercises. So if that's leg day, that could be lunges, Bulgarian split squats, deadlifts, and um regular squats, right? That's four exercises. Now, when you're focusing on four versus like 10 or 11 exercises, you can really give your all to those four. I always say quality is more important than quantity. If you can do four exercises and give it your all and do it in a very quality way, that's gonna get you better results than trying to do 10 exercises and kind of doing them half the way. So let's dig into each exercise a little bit more. So when you're picking exercises to do, so in our coaching program, for example, we actually build our clients' workout programming for them in our client-only app. So they don't have to think about, okay, what exercises do I do? What does this exercise mean? How does it work? In our client-only app, our clients see their workout programming, they can see what the exercise is called. There's a video tutorial of me demonstrating it. It tells them how many sets and reps, they can log how much weight they lifted. It's really, really easy to follow, even if you're a beginner. But for the sake of this episode, um, if you're wanting to start this, you want to focus on compound movements over isolated movements. What this means is, for example, say you're wanting to get a flat stomach. You might think I have to do a bunch of ab exercises like crunches, uh, V-ups, things like that. But the truth is, isolated exercises are not a very good use of your time because if you want to work your abs and your glutes and your hamstrings and your quads and your upper body, right? You're having to do like 10 different exercises to hit all those muscles. Compound exercises are exercises that work multiple muscles at the same time. Meaning if you do, for example, a squat, you're working your glutes, your hamstrings, your quads all at once, right? And then also if you're doing a squat with dumbbells, you're also working upper body because you're holding that weight. So I always, with our clients, we have them do more compound movements because then they're working multiple muscles at once. It's more bang for their buck. And specifically, if we're talking about abs, right, I don't do isolated ab exercises and I have abs and people are always shocked. They're like, you don't do like an ab routine one time a week or every day. No, the reason is most compound movements also work your core because if you're trying to do a squat, for example, you have to have a strong core to go down and get up because your core is the middle of your body. And so if you want to be able to do movements that require upper and lower body, you have to have a strong core to do those movements. So a squat, for example, does work your core. A deadlift works your core, but they also work your glutes, your hamstrings, your quads all at once. So I really recommend when you're choosing exercises to do, choose compound movements because you basically can work all these muscles at once with only a couple of exercises. The examples of the exercises I just gave you, squats, deadlifts, vulgarians, things like that, are examples of compound movements. So a lot of our clients are doing those specific movements on their leg days within our program. And if they're working out from home, they can do those things with just a couple pairs of dumbbells. If they're going to a gym, they could also use dumbbells or they could use a machine or a barbell, whatever they're most comfortable with, depending on their level in their journey, whether they're more beginner, intermediate, or advanced. The next thing you might be wondering is the rep range. So some people say do eight reps, 10 reps, 12 reps. So reps means how many times you do the movement. So for example, someone might say you're doing 10 squats. So 10 is the reps. You're doing 10 squats, you're taking a break, 10 more, taking a break. So I recommend you do between eight and 12 reps of every exercise. Eight if you're lifting a bit heavier, and then 12 if you're lifting a little bit more modestly. So for example, for me personally, I usually do eight reps of my exercises because I lift a bit heavier. For our clients who are more beginner, we start them out at about 10 to 12 reps because they're building up their strength. But you can really choose either anything in this range is still great. I would just say anything between eight to 12. So just to give you an example, there's reps and then there's sets. Let me back up. So reps is you're doing 10 repetitions of something before you take a break. So I'm doing 10 reps of squats. That means I'm squatting once, twice, three times all the way to 10. Then I might take a break for a minute. Then I do another set of 10 repetitions. One, two, three, et cetera. So reps is how many times you do the exercise back to back, and sets is how many times you do those sets of reps. So if I say you need to do four sets of squats, 10 reps each set, that means you're doing, let me actually make the example easier. Say that I'm telling you you need to do four sets of three squats, three reps per set. So that means I'm doing squats, one, two, three squats, then I'm taking a break. Then I'm doing squats again. One, two, three squats, taking a break. Then again, one, two, three squats, taking a break. Then last one, one, two, three squats, and I'm taking a break. So that would be four sets of three reps, if that makes sense. And I don't see any scenario where you're doing three reps. You shouldn't be doing eight to twelve, but I just wanted to give you that example so I could actually say one, two, three, so you could hear it. Um, so you have your reps and you have your sets. I typic recommend that you do four exercises per workout. With each of those exercises, I recommend you do eight to twelve reps and three to four sets. So for example, if you're doing squats, that could look like, okay, I'm doing eight to twelve reps of the squat, taking a break, then doing another one, taking a break, then doing another one. Right? So there's a range because for some of our clients who are a bit more advanced, they might do, for example, four sets of each exercise and like eight reps because they're lifting heavy. Then for someone who's more beginner, they might be doing, say, 12 reps and three sets because they're a little bit newer to exercise. So anything within this range is fine, but the really big goal is to make sure you're lifting weights that are compound movements, you're challenging yourself, you're getting in enough reps and enough sets. The next thing you want to focus on is progressive overload. Progressive overload means changing some factor over time. So, for example, if you started and you're a beginner and you're lifting five-pound dumbbells, you should not continue lifting that forever because at some point you're gonna get stronger and that's gonna feel too light for you. So progressive overload might mean say right now you're doing uh three sets of 12 reps of bicep curls and you're lifting five pounds. That means a month from now, maybe you're gonna start doing four sets instead. Maybe you're gonna start lifting 10 pounds versus five. So we're changing some factor. That could be the weight that we're lifting, the amount of reps that we're doing, whatever it might be. So with our clients, what we do is after a month, we actually have them increase the weight that they're lifting because at that point they're stronger and what they were lifting before becomes too light. You want to consistently challenge yourself. And the way you know you're lifting the right amount of weights is if you're doing, say, 12 repetitions of something, the last three repetitions should feel a little bit more difficult. Like you can do it, but you feel it a little bit more. If that's how you feel, you're lifting the right amount of weight. If every single rep you do is super easy, it's too light. If you can barely get to 12 reps, like you're struggling, then it's probably too heavy. The healthy balance of what you want to do is the last couple reps that you do should be challenging, but you can still do them. Now you can do this at home or at a gym. In fact, a lot of our clients do work out at home because they're busy professionals, they have a tight schedule, it's just easier for them. And so all you really need is three pairs of dumbbells. And I say three because you want to have one that's really light for things they're not as strong in. So a lot of women I find are stronger in their lower body than their upper body if they're not working both intentionally. So maybe you have a five-pound dumbbell set that you use for upper body movements. Then you have a 10-pound dumbbell set you use for some lower body movements that you're okay in, and then you maybe have 15-pound dumbbells for lower body movements you're stronger in. And so that way you have a range of dumbbells to use to challenge yourself and you can still do all the movements you need to at home. You really don't need anything besides dumbbells to start strength training. And I have women tell me all the time before they work with me, they're like, oh, I feel like I need to go to a gym. I feel like I need all this equipment. You don't. You don't. We have clients in their 60s, 50s who are just working out from home, losing 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds just with a couple pairs of dumbbells at home. Because strength training does not require machines. Strength training means you're getting stronger, and getting stronger just means you have to have something to give you resistance. A dumbbell is a form of resistance, just like some crazy fancy machine in the gym is, right? So you just need to have the right dumbbells that challenge you enough to build that strength. So that's part one. You want to have your strength training routine three to four days a week. We kind of talked about the reps, the sets, the workouts, all the things. Second thing you want to include is a low-impact form of cardio that you do every single day. The most popular form of cardio for our clients is walking. So this is because, you know, there's other things you can do like swimming, dancing, hiking, things of that sort. But walking tends to be the most accessible because you can just walk outside and walk around your neighborhood. You can get a walking pad and walk while you're working, walk while you're watching TV. It's just much more accessible. Uh, and the reason I recommend low impact uh cardio versus something high intensity is because low impact cardio does not spike your cortisol levels as much. So when your cortisol levels are lower, it's much easier for you to release that extra weight, especially in your midsection. On top of that, because walking is gentle, you're less susceptible to injuries, hurting yourself. If you have knee pain or back pain, it's not as it doesn't stress those things out even more. And so walking is my go-to form of exercise for our clients over 40. And you want to aim for 7,000 steps a day, which is about an hour and a half, two hours, depending on how fast that you go. Now, if you're very sedentary right now, I recommend working up to this. You don't want to go from not doing a lot of steps to a lot because that's gonna be overwhelming. You're not gonna want to stick with it, and then you're gonna quit. So I recommend taking a smartwatch or app on your phone and just tracking for a week. Don't change anything. Just track to see how many steps you're getting in now. If it's say 2,000, you want to aim to increase it by a thousand week after week until you average 7,000 steps. That's what we do for a lot of our clients. And so just by walking alone, you can lose weight over 40. So, for example, we had a client, busy executive, works a lot, has three kids, a family, just a lot going on. When she came to us, we didn't even touch a strength training or any of that. We just had her focus on walking and then making some nutritional changes. She lost her first 20 pounds just walking. No lifting weights, none of that. And that's because walking helps you burn calories. So if she was eating a certain amount before but wasn't moving, she was maintaining her weight. By walking, she was burning more calories a day, which was putting her in a calorie deficit. And she was able to walk while she was doing things she already had to do, like talking to her team, talking to her family, walking while on meetings, all these different things. So walking really is a cheat code when you kind of dial it in, do it consistently. And it actually becomes fun because if you're walking outside, you get to be in nature, you're getting your vitamin D, you're more happy because you're around greenery and trees. So it's just great for your mental health, physical health, and it helps aid with weight loss. I also more particularly recommend walking after meals when you can because walking after meals helps you with your blood sugar regulation and also helps with digestion. So getting some thousand steps in a day is really the goal. But if you can schedule those walks after meals, it's gonna have multiple impacts as far as helping you boost your metabolism, helping you burn calories, helping with blood sugar regulation, helping with digestion. So that's the best time to get the walk-in. But if you can't do your walks after your meals, that's totally fine. But it just adds more bonuses on top. The third type of movement you want to prioritize is something fun that you want to do once a week. Because exercise, yes, the goal is you want to be strong, you want to be healthy, but also exercise can be fun as well. So sometimes I enjoy my lifting sessions. Sometimes I'm just like, I'm just doing it to get it done. I know you would know what I mean. Like not everything is fun all the time. It's just like this is a habit and I do it. But one time a week, you want to have something that you do just for fun that's also active. So for example, I'm a part of a tennis club, I'm a part of a run club, I also hike sometimes. And so once a week I'll play tennis with my friends. That's me burning calories. It's working out, but it's also a good time. Like I enjoy hanging out with my friends, I enjoy getting better at tennis. So that's an example. Run club, I'll be honest, I do not enjoy running, but I enjoy the social environment for run clubs. So I go to run club once a week, I do my two miles, but I get to dance afterwards, get to see my friends. So that's something fun I get to do. Well, if I'm going for a hike, maybe it's with some friends or family. My mom loves hiking, and so does my sister. Every time we hang out, she's like, Can we go on a hike? Can we go on a hike? Um, so that's something fun to do as well. So think about some fun activities that you think you would enjoy or already enjoy and just plan it in once a week because that helps make movement not feel always like structured and I have to do this, but also like there's fun mixed into it. So if you really like dancing, sign up for a dance class with your friends. If you really like swimming, do a swimming class. Whatever that looks like for you, rock climbing, there's so many ways to get active, but find something you enjoy and just schedule it in once a week because it's something you do for fun, but it's also something that helps you stay active. So, something example for me, like I work out three times per week. Then on the weekend, I don't go to the gym, I don't lift weights, but I do something active that feels fun. So that might be going for a long walk in the park with a friend. It can be going for a hike, it can be playing tennis, but I'm still staying active on the weekend without having to go to a gym. And this helps because a lot of women I find, they'll work out and be active during the week, but on the weekend, they're very sedentary because they're like, well, I don't want to go to a gym, I don't want to have to do my workouts. Well, find other forms of workouts that are you being active, but don't feel like it. So you're still staying active even on the weekend. Now I know we talked about rest days a little bit, but I want to share a bit more in depth because it's so, so important. You need to have at least two rest days a week. Your muscles need time to recover and repair before doing another workout. Now, for example, if you're doing, you know, three days a week and then you're also going on a hike on Saturday. Maybe you don't have a rest day between Friday and Saturday, but you know, a hike is different than you doing, for example, an upper body lifting session. That's fine. But that still leaves Tuesday's recovery day, Thursday's recovery day, and Sunday as a recovery day. It's really, really important to build in rest. And on rest day, you don't have to be completely sedentary. You still want to get your walks in, but don't also walk and lift weights. Maybe you're gonna do some yoga, maybe some gentle stretching, walking, things like that, but just don't plan in like a strength training session or some sort of intense workout on those rest days so your body can fully recover. And some clear signs you need more rest are number one, you're always sore. So if you're always sore every single day, you're not getting enough rest. Number two, your sleep is disrupted. That's a sign that your cortisol levels are high and you need more rest days. And number three, if you're dreading your workouts, that tells me that you're doing too many. You're not building in time for your body to recover. So it feels like, oh, I gotta do this again because you just did it the day before. So in summer, you want to focus on strength training three to four times per week, 45 minutes, no longer than that. You want to focus on walking every day or some sort of low impact cardio that could also be something like swimming, biking, something of the sort. You want to have one, at least one fun workout you do per week, whether that's a dance class, hiking, tennis, pickleball. And then you also want to prioritize rest at least two rest days a week. If you focus on these things, or even to start with one thing, like I told you, we had a Client lose 20 pounds, her first 20 pounds just by walking, you will lose fat, tone up, lean out, love the way your body looks in the mirror, pictures, and clothes, because you didn't just lose weight, you lost fat and built muscle, which leads to you losing the underarm fat, the stubborn belly fat, the fat around your legs, all the things that make you feel self-conscious, that really comes down to you building muscle, leaning out and toning up. So thank you so much for tuning into the Fit and Fulfill Show today. Hope you walked away with practical strategies you can start using to feel more confident, energized, and good in your body after 40. And if you found this helpful in absolutely any way, I ask that you please subscribe and share it with a friend who you think would get value from this information. And if you're a busy professional woman who wants to lose 20 to 50 pounds in a healthy, sustainable way without cutting out your favorite foods, I would love to invite you to apply for our coaching program, the Fit and Fulfilled Academy. In the Academy, we help women just like you with the support, guidance, and coaching you need with mindset, nutrition, and fitness to achieve lasting weight loss. All the details are down below. Next week we're diving into a brand new episode you're not going to want to miss. But until then, remember you deserve to feel as confident in your body as you do in your career. Take care.