“After doing the same cardio or strength routine three to six times, your body adapts and you burn fewer calories,” says Michael
Sokol, the owner of One-on-One Fitness Personal Training Services, in Chicago and Scottsdale, Arizona. Eventually your results—weight
loss, muscle definition—will slow down. Also, repeatedly placing stress on the same muscles and joints could lead to an overuse
injury.
Action plan: Once a month, change one thing about your cardio and weight-training regimens: Take a Zumba class in lieu of your Saturday
walk, for instance, or use a resistance band instead of dumbbells. Bonus: Mixing things up may help you stick with exercise.
A 2001 study conducted at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, found that people who varied their routines enjoyed their
workouts more—and exercised more regularly—than did people who went with the same thing every day.
2. Cardio Isn’t the Magic Bullet for Weight Loss
While biking, running, and walking are great for your heart, “research suggests that it’s difficult to lose fat when you do
only cardiovascular activity,” says Jeff Halevy, a celebrity trainer and the CEO of Halevy Life, a health and fitness service
company in New York City. Although aerobic exercise will burn calories, it doesn’t really change your metabolism. What does:
lean muscle mass. “Muscle helps you burn more calories even after your workout is over,” says Halevy. The more lean muscle
mass you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate (the baseline amount of calories you burn in a day), says Wayne Westcott,
Ph.D., the director of fitness research at Quincy College, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Women tend to lose five to seven pounds
of muscle in each decade of adulthood—one reason why the pounds creep on as we get older. Westcott’s research has found that
if you do strength training three times a week, you can add an average of three pounds of muscle in about three months, increasing
your metabolism by 6 to 7 percent.
Action plan: Keep doing cardio three times a week, but add two or three strength-training workouts. Aim to work all the major muscles
over the week; complete one to two sets of 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise. To get started, check out the website of
the American Council on Exercise for an extensive library of weight-training moves.
What's Next
