If you think that you must have a gym membership to be taking fitness ‘seriously’, you absolutely need to think again – effective workouts can pretty much be done from anywhere.
Somebody who will attest to this is 53-year-old personal trainer and fitness content creator Cheryl Coulombe, who, at 47, quit the gym and started doing dumbbell-only workouts at home instead.
Now, through her online training platform – Muscle Method: Build to Lose – Coulombe is helping more women discover the benefits of strength training from home.
But if your goal is sustainable weight loss, the picture is bigger than strength training alone – although that is key – as Coulombe highlighted in a recent Instagram post about her own fitness journey. It was the below four habits in conjunction, she says, that helped her lose 10kg.
The habits
‘I put in real effort – no more half-assing it,’ writes Coulombe. ‘Comfortable sets don’t change your body. The growth signal only fires when the weight genuinely fights back. If you finish a set and could’ve done 5 more, that wasn’t a working set – it was a warm-up. Push to the point where the last 2-3 reps are hard.’
2. She used progressive overload
‘Same movements, but never the same effort,’ Coulombe notes of her dumbbell home workouts. ‘Every session had to beat the last – one more rep, a little more weight, a slower tempo. Write it down. If you’re not tracking what you lifted last week, you can’t beat it, and your body has no reason to change.’
She’s referring to progressive overload, a science-backed training principle that helps facilitate effective muscle growth. As Coulombe highlights, it involves incrementally increasing training stress (eg, reps, weight, time under tension) over time.
‘When you exercise, you place a stress on the body. Your body then recovers and adapts to this stressor, so that when that same stressor happens again, you can do it with much less effort,’ strength and conditioning coach Andy Vincent previously explained to Women’s Health.
3. She walked a lot
‘10K steps a day. Not cardio, just movement. It does more for midlife fat loss than any joint-pounding treadmill session, and it doesn’t steal from your recovery,’ writes Coulombe. ‘Park farther. Walk while you’re on the phone. Stack the steps,’ she says of the habit stacking that helped her increase her daily steps.
While a daily 10K step count isn’t the be all and end all, experts typically agree that walking is a crucial part of the puzzle in midlife if your goal is fat loss.
A type of ‘zone 2 training’, brisk walking helps keep you in the heart rate zone (around 60-70% of your maximum heart rate) where your body typically uses a greater proportion of fat for fuel than at higher exercise intensities.
Indeed, a 12-week study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that moderate-intensity walking (at 64-76% of participants’ maximum heart rate) reduced body weight and body fat percentage in older women with obesity.
4. She focused on her nutrition
Another vital part of the puzzle? Nutrition, adds Coulombe. ‘I stopped guessing and found my numbers. Google TDEE calculator, take 250-500 off for a deficit, and hit 0.7-1g of protein per pound of bodyweight – protein first at every meal,’ she notes of her approach. ‘This is the one most women skip, and it’s the one that decides whether the work shows.’
Indeed, while Zone 2 exercise can play a valuable role in supporting sustainable weight loss, being in a calorie deficit – expending more energy than you consume – remains the primary driver of fat loss.
One of our most frequently asked questions here at Women’s Health? How to build muscle and burn fat at the same time. So, we asked superstar trainer Oyinda Okunowo exactly how to do it. In this 4-week plan – created exclusively for Women’s Health COLLECTIVE members – you’ll get the workouts and nutrition guidance needed to help you on your way to better body composition. Tap the link below to unlock 14 days of free access to Oyinda’s plan and start training today.
Hannah Bradfield is a Senior Health and Fitness Writer for Women’s Health UK. An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Hannah graduated from Loughborough University with a BA in English and Sport Science and an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis. She has been covering sports, health and fitness for the last five years and has created content for outlets including BBC Sport, BBC Sounds, Runner’s World and Stylist. She especially enjoys interviewing those working within the community to improve access to sport, exercise and wellness. Hannah is a 2024 John Schofield Trust Fellow and was also named a 2022 Rising Star in Journalism by The Printing Charity. A keen runner, Hannah was firmly a sprinter growing up (also dabbling in long jump) but has since transitioned to longer-distance running. While 10K is her favoured race distance, she loves running or volunteering at parkrun every Saturday, followed, of course, by pastries. She’s always looking for fun new runs and races to do and brunch spots to try.