The truth is that you might stall or even gain weight when you exercise. There are a few reasons this might happen, but in order to understand why it’s happened to you, you need to determine what your overall goals for starting an exercise routine are.

 

Reasons You Might Gain Weight While Exercising:

1. You’re eating more
2. You’re exercising too much
3. You’re doing too much, too fast

 

The Chief Complaint: “Exercise is Stalling my Weight Loss”

It is absolutely true that when you first start exercising, you might see the scale going up. There are a few reasons this might happen, but the most important thing to figure out is what your ultimate goal for exercising is.

 

Why You Should Exercise

I believe that everyone should exercise for their overall health and wellbeing. The type of exercise you do, intensity, and duration, will determine what happens to your body as you move it.

So firstly, you need to determine what your ultimate goal is with exercise. Are you exercising strictly to see the number on the scale go down? Change your body composition? Improve your overall health?

Knowing this answer will help you determine what approach to exercise you take. 

If your goal is solely focused on the number on the scale, it’s best to do gentle exercises that don’t stress your muscles. My favorite low-impact exercise is actually just walking! This will help you lose weight on its own.

 

Cardio Exercise is Actually Necessary

When you first start a new exercise routine, I’d recommend doing the least amount possible. Not only does this make it easier to stick to your routine, thereby hitting your goals, it also keeps your body guessing.

Because your body can and will pick up real quick if you start making drastic changes. This can look like weight gain or stalling in your composition changes. Especially if you’re brand new to exercise, think about starting off with 10-20 minutes a day for 3 days a week.

I also talk about how you can exercise to make changes to your body composition. This includes how much cardio you should include - because yes, I believe that even if your focus is on building muscle mass, you still need to improve your cardiovascular health.

There’s also a recommended time to do your cardio and that’s after your strength training workout. I’d say if you wanted to tack on a 25-minute cardio session after your strength workout, this is the perfect time because your body is in the best condition for fat burning.

 

Homework for Women Physicians

What are your overall body and exercise goals? What’s your favorite way to exercise? Let me know in the comments on the episode page.

 

In This Episode 

• Some of the reasons why exercise might make you gain weight [2:30]
• Why you need to determine what your goal is when it comes to exercise [5:15]
• What kind of exercise is best if you’re just concerned about the number on the scale [7:20]
• Why you want to start your exercise routine with the least amount possible to get results [12:30]
• How much cardio exercise you should do when you first start working out [14:45]
• Why you should do strength training before your cardio workout [17:20]

 

Quotes

“If you are new to the world of weight training, you’re not going to go ahead and weight train 7 days a week and do maximum amounts of cardio because the body learns very quickly.” [12:09]

“The approach is less is more, especially to start. You want to do the smallest amount and still see results.” [12:35]

“We need to start thinking outside the box. We need to start honoring our own unique body types. But most importantly, what do you want? What do you want really? For you? Not for what other people think. Not for how you think you’re going to show up differently. How do YOU want to proceed? Any results you want, you can have. The only thing that will hold you back is confusion about that result.” [19:53]

 

Resources Mentioned

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Podcast production by the team at Counterweight Creative

 

Related Episodes

Episode 34: "I Don't Lose Weight As Fast As Others"

Episode 12: "I am exercising so much and not seeing results"

Episode 33: “I Need To Be In Better Shape To Go To The Gym