If you’re a woman in your 40s and 50s, you would have grown up in an era where there wasn’t much talk about women lifting weights or even getting into the gym. And the only time I can remember anything remotely like that was when the Commonwealth Games were on in 1982, where you saw women power lifters competing. And at school it was very much team based sports or athletics, things like netball, softball, basketball, running or swimming, and most of which I never felt comfortable in, especially the team sports mainly because I felt like I didn’t know how to play and was never shown. It was more like just throw you in here and see what happens. I also felt like I wasn’t part of the team always being left out of play because I didn’t know what I was doing, never had the ball passed to me in basketball or netball, so I can at least have a go. And so I tried to get out of it as much as I could. And also none of the cool kids were doing it either. So I thought it was the in thing to not do it.
And then after school there was an era of aerobics, essentially cardio based movement set to music, and at the time it was going off. It was like dancing to music and I loved it. So much so that I became an instructor. And the funny thing is, at the same time as when I did my initial training to be an instructor, I also did a resistance training course but I didn’t see the value in it. I just thought it was something that I would be doing to train men in the gym, not women. And women weren’t really interested in it. They were only interested in joining classes. And back then I think aerobics was more about being fit. It wasn’t a great deal about weight loss. And then I think it was becoming a different type of meaning later on.
Like Jane Fonda was pretty huge back then and her videos were mainly about working out. But then other instructors got on the bandwagon, and it became more about targeting a certain area of your body. For example, “Buns of Steel”. And there was a an actress, Suzanne Somers from that era. She brought out a toning system contraction that looked a little bit like a figure eight, and I’m sure you know the one that I’m talking about. You would put it between your thighs and squeeze it together in the hope of getting more times in your thighs. Another one was Denise Austin, and she brought out videos of how to tighten your buttocks and thighs and abdominal workouts.
And so from there it just got even worse people were becoming more overweight with the introduction of so many fast food chains and upsizing of meals. Everyone was looking to fitness as a way to lose weight but people just weren’t educated on nutrition and fat loss. And because of the trends in fitness, it all just seemed to snowball from there. And this is where women get the notion of toning from the good old 80s and 90s. It left us with idea that if you want to lose weight and tone up, then you need to do cardio.
And I taught aerobics and classes for many years, on and off since 1989. And in my 40s I was teaching three to five classes per week. And even though I wasn’t huge, my belly and the fat on my thighs just seemed to be getting bigger. And in the end, I bought a treadmill and I started running and was doing loads and loads of core exercises. And I just thought I needed to do more cardio to trim down my thighs and do more crunches to get the fat off my belly. But no matter how I tried, it was still there. I didn’t know any better. That’s what I grew up thinking that I had to do.
And I used to look at the instructors of the Les Mills classes I used to teach later on and thought, I really want to look like you and I thought that all they did was teach classes. But little did I know they actually did resistance training and hardly taught any classes at all. And I remember asking one of them at a workshop, how many classes they did a week and they said maybe two or three. And I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I couldn’t wrap my head head around the fact of, how do you look so good?
And I was beginning to get burned out I was eating more than ever. And my butt was getting bigger and I just felt awful about myself. And it wasn’t until a friend who had started working at my gym, introduced me to resistance training and I saw how much my body started to change. But I felt strong and I saw some people who had competed in bodybuilding and thought that’s something I’d like to do. And I wanted to challenge myself. And it wasn’t until I decided to compete in bodybuilding, where I learned my biggest lessons to what most women would refer to as toning or shaping. It all had to do with lifting weights whilst losing body fat. And the other thing that I learned was that calories matter. I didn’t know that you can still eat ice cream and lose weight. Like most people, I thought you just had to eat healthy and cut all the junk food and you would just lose weight. But I was able to continue eating ice cream, my Saturday night pizza, my homemade pizza and chocolate and wine if I wanted to.
And look, that doesn’t mean that’s all I ate. I still ate a lot of whole foods like lean meats and whole grains and dairy and veg and fruit. And then I was able to eat a bit of fun stuff as well as long as I was eating within my calories. And by having this experience, I wanted to know more about it. So I studied sports nutrition and nutrition for two years so I could really understand it more. And after that I competed again but this time I did it on my own. I went out and I placed several times as well and I won an overall placing in one category too.
Now I’m not saying that women need to go and do bodybuilding shows. I really wanted to point out my experience and how I got to where I am. So, so much has changed since the 80s and 90s. And there has been so much more research in health and nutrition and exercise and in general and more and more studies have come out saying that the most effective exercise modality for reducing body fat percentage was resistance training plus calorie restriction or a calorie deficit. But not only that, but studies have shown that women lose muscle mass, strength and function which is also known as sarcopenia at approximately three to 8% per decade after the age of 30. And this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60. So women need to realise that although cardio is great for building up your cardiovascular fitness to keep you fit and healthy, but it won’t get you leaner or stronger. You are just barking up the wrong tree, and if weight loss is the goal, resistance training helps to retain protect and shape the muscle you currently have. And with a combined deficit of calories and eating more protein, you will have your body using primarily your body fat stores for energy, which means you will lose body fat more easily and retain your muscle as you diet.
And the other thing is that women feel as though lifting weights will make them bulky, but the only way you can get bigger muscle is to eat more calories. A surplus of calories is what builds muscle. But if you are a newbie to lifting weights eating in a deficit will give you a little bit of muscle but it is nothing like what you think it is. More than anything you will be losing more body fat. And if you have ever dieted before or have seen someone who has lost a lot of weight without doing any form of exercise or resistance training you may have noticed that even though they have lost a lot of weight, it still looked as though they had a lot of body fat to lose. And that is because they weren’t just losing body fat, but they were also losing water and muscle and it’s what’s commonly called as skinny fat. And the more someone diets and puts the weight back on again and then diets again and again, means they will just continue to lose more muscle and just add more and more body fat to their frame. And this is why resistance training is a must do when you are trying to lose weight. But not only that, you should do it for longevity of life.
So now that I’m heading towards 60 I can’t believe I’m saying that I’m 57 now… I’m still in the best shape of my life. I’ve learned how to maintain a healthy body weight, I eat pizza. I eat chocolate and wine when I want to. I love my body and what it can do and I’m setting myself up so that I can head into my 70s and 80s, knowing that I have done everything I can to prolong my life and be independent as I age. And you should too.