7 Ways to Make Your Workouts More Effective that Have Nothing to Do with Working Out
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Are you frustrated with the results that you are seeing from your workouts? Because of this, do you think you need to spend more time pumping your dumbbells or that you need to incorporate more cardio into your routine to see the results you actually want to see?
Guess what, sister?! You don’t have to workout more to see better results. In fact, working out more could cause you to see reverse effects. There are things outside of your workout that you can do that all factor into the results you see from the efforts you’re putting into your workouts. And, without these 7 things, you’re going to struggle to see the results you really want to see.
In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I’m going to share what you can do to make your workouts more effective without spending more time working out. In fact, these 7 things have absolutely nothing to do with your workouts but will have huge effects on the results you see.
What I discussed:
Eat enough protein.
Eat enough food.
Don’t go over on your macros consistently.
Honor your body with movement outside your workouts.
Take rest days/rest weeks
Get enough sleep
Drink more water
Link mentioned in this episode:
MWJ app: sale.movementwithjulie.com
Macro Counting Made Simple: macrocountingmadesimple.com
If you want more from me, be sure to check out:
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Transcript:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. A podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I issue a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get hugs, girl. Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Your podcast.
If you're feeling frustrated with the results or the non results that you're seeing, like maybe you're working out consistently and you're like, Dang, I'm just not seeing the results that I want. I think oftentimes our brain immediately goes to I just need to do more, right? I need to be spending more time with my normal workouts. I need incorporate more cardio, I need to do more workouts. And it always goes back to the workout aspect of things and we don't really evaluate the rest of our lifestyle. And that's where I come in. I want to share with you seven ways to make your workouts more effective that really have nothing to do with working out. And so in this episode, that's exactly what I'm going to be sharing with you.
Before we dove in, I had to share this review. It comes from Sydney. Oh, girl, I don't know how to pronounce your last name. It's Glienke. She gave a five star review and said, Ah, mazing. I had started going to therapy a couple of months ago and during this time I also started listening to podcasts for the first time. I wanted something positive to listen to and helped me gain self-confidence and work on loving myself well. I stumbled across embrace surreal and I'm forever grateful that I did. I feel as though these podcasts have done more for me and my mental health than even my therapist have. Every episode has something that I can relate to and is so positive and uplifting. Thank you, Julie, for sharing your story and all of your tips and tricks. While Sydney, I am so grateful that this podcast has had an impact on you.
Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so proud of you for taking the time to invest in yourself and really help you gain more self-confidence and work on loving yourself. So thank you in advance for all the reviews that you guys have left recently. I have absolutely loved reading them. If you haven't left a rating interview yet girl, that is my one ask of you if this podcast has helped you in any way, if you could scootch over to Apple Podcasts and leave rating interview. Now if you're over on Spotify, I totally understand and I love my Spotify fam. You can also rate this episode. You can't leave a review, but you can rate it and all the ratings help so, so much in just getting this podcast in more people's ears like that is the main goal is that we can reach millions of women on a annual basis. It just encouraging, empowering and inspiring them to truly embrace their real kind of their body with movement and give them some real talk. So thank you in advance for doing that.
Let's dive into the seven ways to make your workouts more effective that have nothing to do with working out. Number one, eat enough protein. You guys hear me talk about this all the time. But protein is the building blocks of muscle, right? You literally cannot build muscle without protein. And so if you're working out consistently, but you're not eating enough protein, you're really not giving your body what it needs to build muscle. Right. You're working out hard for no reason, essentially. And it's extremely hard to reach your goals without protein. Right. Without enough protein, you're simply not going to be able to build and maintain the body that you want. It really doesn't matter if you're hitting your carbon physicals. If you're not getting enough protein, it's still going to be very difficult. Protein is the building block of muscle. And so making sure that you're properly fueling your body is crucial. Right. Protein is, again, the building block of muscle. And muscle is actually what keeps you looking lean, feeling strong and having a revving metabolism. So please do not skimp on your protein. I'm going to kind of get nerdy on you in a second, so bear with me. But I think that this is important that you understand this. You actually burn more calories when you're eating more protein. And this is because protein requires your body to use more energy to digest compared to other foods. This is actually known as the thermic effect of food, also known as t s. So basically t f refers to the number of calories that your body needs to digest, absorb and process the nutrients in your meal. Lots of research has shown that protein rich foods can actually increase t f the most. So for example, it could actually increase your metabolic rate, which is essentially just the rate that your body's able to burn calories by up to 30% compared with carbs, which is 5 to 10%, and fats, which is 0 to 3% plus. You actually burn about 30% of the calories consumed through digestion. So, for example, if you're eating 100 calories of chicken, you're going to burn 30 of those calories just by digesting that protein, which is pretty cool.
Number two, you have to be eating enough food in order to lose weight, you need to be eating less than your body is burning every day, which is a.k.a a caloric deficit. If you've ever heard of a caloric deficit, which you likely have, that's essentially just eating less than your body is burning. But the kicker is you need to be eating enough food and you need to be eating it in the proper balance to ensure that you're fueling the different systems of your body, like your digestive system, your immune system, and all the systems connected to your hormones, your muscles and your organs. But the problem is that most people that deprive their body of. The calories that it needs. And when you deprive your body of the calories that it needs, it actually has a direct impact negatively on your metabolism. I want you to think about this. Think about your body as a bank account only imagine if you only made withdraws from that account without ever depositing anything into it. Right. So you just keep going into the bank. You just keep making withdraw, making withdraw, making you withdraw. So I'm pretty scary. Like sooner or later you're going to run out of money in that account and you're going to be facing some serious issues, especially when rent comes around, when you need to eat, when you need to pay your electric bill, right? Your body works in the same way. If you keep making withdraws a.k.a. burning energy without ever making any deposits, a.k.a. eating, you're going to likely run into some serious problems. And what happens is your body does its very best to protect itself. So when it's in the situation, right? So kind of going back to the bank account analogy, your body is going to be smart with its money. It's not going to make more withdraws than it does deposits. So it knows that it's not getting enough calories so it adapts to make sure it doesn't burn more than what it's getting. Right. And in order to reduce its overall caloric output, it slows down the different systems of your body, your metabolism included in that. It can also make changes to your thyroid hormones, your adrenal hormones, your sex hormones. And when your hormones are out of balance, that's when your whole body gets thrown out of whack. So, yes, you might see results at first when you drastically cut calories, but sooner or later your body will adapt to make sure its output is matching its input. And that's when you'll likely experience a plateau. And when you experience plateau, then you're going to have to cut even more calories to see the same results. This overall will just create a vicious cycle because you'll think that you need to restrict your caloric intake again, and then the whole thing just repeats itself. So it's best when we make sure we are eating enough food to ensure that our metabolism is thriving.
Number three, don't go over your macros consistently. While some people struggle to eat enough food, some people struggle to stay within their macros, right? Sometimes they're just simply tracking things wrong or they're eyeballing instead of measuring it, and it can cause them to go over their macros without even realizing it. Or some people just struggle in general to stick to their macros and maybe they don't count their macros at all. Maybe you don't even know what I'm talking about when I say macros. If you don't have a free book for that, I will link it in the show notes below. But whichever way you kind of fall on the spectrum, it's very common and it's a common mistake that really causes many women to not see the results that they want from their workouts. Why? Well, I kind of like to look at it like this. You can't out train going over your macros or properly fueling your body because you guys know that I'm not a diet person. I don't like saying good or bad, associating it with food. I just think that's a toxic way of looking at food. But either way, if you are like not delaying your nutrition and giving your body the proper amount of protein, carbs and fats that it needs daily, then no matter how much training you do, that won't make up for it. And this is arguably the most important thing when it comes to body fat loss, right? You can't build muscle like you just talked about. It's really difficult to build muscle if you're not eating enough protein and if you're not overall eating and fueling your body enough. And if you have body composition goals, you want to change, you know, you want to strengthen certain areas of your body. You just overall want to change your overall body composition. Nutrition is queen and this I actually do an entire episode on it. I will link it in the show notes below, but it's called nutrition or exercise, which is more important, and it's kind of an O.G. episode from 2020. But I really think that this episode will give you a lot of insight because I go in depth and I just explain why nutrition is so important and why kind of dialing in your nutrition will help you if you're struggling to change your body composition or if you're struggling in your body fat loss phase. And if you're not doing that, I think that it will help you just kind of see it from a different perspective.
Number four, honor your body with movement outside of your workouts. Now, if you want to see better results from your actual workouts, I just suggest that you start prioritizing moving your body just generally outside of your workouts, right? If you're sitting down all day long, except for the 45 minutes that you're doing, you know, three, four times a week when you're working out, it's going to take a lot longer for your body composition to change. And you can actually expedite your progress by incorporating more non exercise movement into your day, right? This is simply movement. This is not exercise, this is just non exercise activity thermogenesis which is just it's a fad. That's a fancy word. The abbreviation is neat any 80. So if you ever see any 80, that's essentially just really increasing your energy expenditure outside of your workouts, right? So I'm not suggesting you to go do your dumbbell workouts and then go for a 45 minute run every single day. That is definitely not necessary. Of course, if you love running in. If you're doing a hybrid programing, that's amazing. But you definitely do not need to do that in order to see better results. Someone on one of my posts on Facebook the other day said, okay, but so you do cardio six times a week. I'm like, Oh, girl. Absolutely not. I do cardio once a week, like intentional hit high intense interval training around once. If I if it's a really like solid week and I'm just feeling on fire, I will do it twice. And my my hit cardio, you know, is is either the cardio section inside Julie or it's cycle on my peloton and it does not go longer than 25 to 30 minutes like maximum. And it's because I'm doing intervals, right? I'm going all out, then I'm resting, going all out and resting. But overall, you do not need to do cardio every single day. In fact, I suggest that you don't. I think that that is the fastest way to burn out. But I do think that you need to start looking at movement a little bit differently and be being more intentional with your movement. So rather than, you know, laying on the couch or sitting at a desk all day, like getting up, either getting a walking pad or getting outside for a walk or cleaning your house or doing something daily that will allow you to do some other movement outside of your workouts. And this type of movement should not be something where you're out of breath or making you even sweat. Honestly, I'm thinking for me personally, 2022 was the year that I really prioritized movement outside of my workouts. And for me, I started I got a walking desk, right? So it's like a desk piece that I put on top of my peloton tread and I use my tread as steps. So it's amazing. Like I'm already doing work and either I would just be sitting at my desk all day or I can stand up and do an hour of walking while I'm working. And I'm telling you, it has been a total game changer, not just in terms of like my overall physique goals, but more so my mindset. Like your body and my body, they are created to move. And so if you can start prioritizing now outside of your workouts and aim for 5000, 7500 steps a day, that would be a game changer.
Number five, take rest days and rest weeks to avoid overtraining. Remember that more is not always better when it comes to working out right. Most times if you overtraining, you will actually see the reverse in results when it comes to overtraining. A lot of times women find it actually harder to lose weight or see changes in their body if they're constantly overtraining, like seven times a week, intense workouts, never giving their body rest. Remember that you're actually not building muscle and you're not burning fat during your workout. It happens after your workouts, right? During your workouts, you're tearing down your muscle fibers and it's after your workouts where you are working towards repairing and building your muscle fibers back. And this is the process of repairing and building where muscle growth and fat burn actually happens. So awesome if you're crushing your workouts daily, but if you're not allowing sufficient time for this process to happen, this can put you in a state of catabolism, a.k.a. a state where you are in a constant muscle breakdown mode. And if you don't really understand what that means, just know this is not what you want. You do not want to constantly be breaking down your muscles and not giving your body enough time to repair your muscle fibers. So by giving your body ample amount of rest, you'll be able to build your muscle and see better results. This is why I only program five days a week inside my mom with Julia because I have found that five days is a sweet spot. It allows you one day of active recovery, which can be, you know, anything outside of your normal training and then one full rest day. Right. So or it can you can, do, you know, all five of them or you can do 3 to 4 workouts. I just feel like five is a happy medium and it's something that is realistic but also gives you the proper amount of time for your body to repair and restore so that you can get back to your workouts and you can actually see results because you're giving your body what it needs. Aside from taking those rest days like active recovery on Saturdays, rest days on Sundays, you'll also find that taking rest weeks can actually be very beneficial for your results. If you have been very consistent and committed to working out, you know, five, 4 to 5, six days a week for, you know, a minimum of 2 to 3 months straight, your body could use a longer rest. So taking a week off from your standard workouts or instead, you know, doing some hiking or walking or like yoga or stretching Pilates, that we can actually be super beneficial for your results. Many women have noticed that their bloat can go down. They can start to see better results because they're getting the ample amount of rest and they can actually go back into their workouts the next week feeling stronger. So if you have a vacation plan coming up, maybe it's time for you to use this as a time to reset and rest.
Number six, get enough sleep. I cannot over emphasize. Is this enough? Getting enough sleep is one of the most important recovery tools that you can utilize, right? You could eat, right. You can consistently move your body, but if you're not sleeping enough, the majority of your recovery is going to happen during sleep. And without having the proper amount of sleep, you're not really allowing your body to give the recovery process enough time to play out. Plus, a lack of sleep can trigger many things your appetite, especially for fatty carby foods that will likely trigger you to overindulge to the point that you're not properly feeling your body anymore. And overall, I just think that sleep is so underrated. Like, I know people always say that like you need to get enough sleep, but not only just enough sleep, like quality sleep, like everybody goes to bed, but not everybody sleeps. And I personally have been implementing more magnesium into kind of my nightly routine and it has been a total game changer. I absolutely love the magnesium supplement that I'm using from science. It's great not here to sell you on it, but if you are looking for a magnesium supplement that will really help you in that. I will tell you I take REM, which is R.E.M from science as well as true. ZM So I take truisms and that has zinc and magnesium and vitamin B6 and REM actually has ashwagandha. It is if you just go to science, it says optimal melatonin dosage point three milligrams, no hangover effect and premium ashwagandha. I've been taking this for the last six or so months and I've taken like a week off and I'll cycle off of it like every think it's every three, 2 to 3 months. And Joshua is like cycle week just to make sure that our body is not completely relying on it. But I'll tell you, this stuff is amazing. It's called a REM three and then also true Zima. So check those out from science. They have really just helped me in my sleep. Like, man, I love them so much because like I just mentioned, it said no hangover effect. It's so true. Like when I wake up, I don't feel like I just got knocked out like a few weeks ago over Thanksgiving, I got really sick and I took NyQuil and I'm just not used to that. Like, I got sleep. But then the next morning, I felt like I. I felt like I just raged the night before. Like I felt like, hung over. I was like. I just was so out of it. You do not feel like this in the by using the REM three and the true Zima. So those two things have been a game changer. But overall, please get enough sleep and please, please, please put your phone in another room. When it comes to your sleeping eye, that will be the day the hell that I die on. Like I will tell you, sleeping without my phone in my room has been such a game changer, not just for my mental health, but my marriage and my sleep quality. It is amazing because I'm no longer like falling asleep scrolling on Instagram. I have put my phone away, I put it in my bathroom, and it also forces me to get up because if I set my alarm, then I have to get up to turn it off because it's in my bathroom which is next to my room. So total game changer. That is one of the best hacks that one of my mentors told me a few years ago. And I have literally done it ever since and it is so amazing.
And last but not least, in number seven, drink and have water. There are so many important reasons to drink tap water. I'm going to highlight three. Number one, hydration can actually help you lose body fat, like the process of breaking down fat in your body does require water. And the first step in breaking down fat is actually called hydrolysis, which is essentially adds water to fat to break it down. Right. So without water, it would be physically impossible for our bodies to break down fat. So if you regularly do not hydrate yourself enough, reaching your fitness goals is just going to be a lot harder. You're going to be working against yourself. Plus, hydration can actually help your muscle function properly. So water is a key player in the form of the structures of protein and glycogen. Right? Two essential things inside of your muscles and compromising the protein and glycogen in your muscles really equates to losing muscle strength and muscle control. So if you want to see optimal results from your workouts, you've got to drink water. Your body not only needs water to aid in muscle recovery and growth, but it also needs water to function properly during your workout. And last but not least, hydration and proper hydration really does help you a lot to not overeat sometimes. And oftentimes we confuse our feelings with thirst and hunger, which means that sometimes we feel hungry when in fact we're actually just thirsty. And when we confuse these two, we end up eating more than our body actually needs. I actually came across this study from this group who drank 16.9 ounces, which is 0.5 liters of water before meals lost about 44% of weight over a period of 12 weeks than the group who didn't drink water prior to their meals. Essentially, that's just tells me. That when you're able to hydrate and properly hydrate yourself, you're actually able to trust your hunger signals more because you know the difference between being actually thirsty versus hungry and you won't be led to overindulge because you've mistaken your, you know, dehydration with hunger. Okay. So let me quickly recap those seven ways to make your workouts more effective that have nothing to do with working out. Number one, eat enough protein. Number two, eat enough food. Number three, don't go over your macros consistently, a.k.a. just properly fuel your body with enough protein, carbs and fats. Number four, honor your body with movement outside of your workouts to really prioritize that meat, that non exercise activity. Thermogenesis number five be sure to prioritize and take rest days and rest weeks. Number six, get enough sleep. And number seven, drink more water. All in all, you'll notice that a few of these points actually have nothing to do with training. They actually have to do with giving your body enough rest and recovery and also how you are feeling your body. It is so, so important. But I will say that a key component to ensure that you're properly fueling your body and getting the results by training your body is having a carefully programed plan that you're following to ensure that you're getting the right amount of fitness, whether that's three days a week or four days a week or five days a week.
If you are in the market to look for a plan and you're like, I need a plan. I need something that will properly trained me. I've got down the rest, I've got down the proper nutrition, but I need something that I can follow that's fun, exciting, but also effective. I have an app for you. It's called Movement With Julie I've done an entire episode on that. I've done tons of episodes on it. But as to why I personally believe dumbbell workouts are the most effective and why I personally follow them. If you want to learn more about my program, you can go to sale that's safely at that moment, which you'll e-com. And then I will also link the podcast that I just mentioned, just kind of talking about why I love demo workouts, why I prioritize them, and also how you should structure your workouts depending on if you're working out two days a week, three days a week, four days a week or five days a week. So I will link that in the show notes below, so be sure to check that out so that you can easily go listen to that afterwards. And also the other thing that I mentioned was learning how to properly feel your body if you don't know how much your body needs in terms of protein, carbs and fats. I have a free e-book for you. You can go to W WW dot Julie a lot better dot com forward slash free dash e-book if you didn't catch that URL, no worries. I will link it in the show notes below so that you can easily go download that it is a 40 plus page, a free e-book that will teach you everything that you need to know and also teach you step by step how you can calculate how to properly fuel your body and what the proper amount of protein, carbs and fat breakdown is for you because that is specific to each individual. That is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that you found this helpful.
I hope that maybe you wrote some notes down or you have a plan to really tackle these things outside of working out more. There are so many other areas of our health and fitness journey that directly affect our results. If you have a friend, a coworker, or somebody in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this episode, I just ask you, share it out with them. You can copy the link, send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your story. We love connecting with you. I will talk to you in the next episode. I love you so much.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, @juliealedbetter. Yes. It's with an a in the middle for that Daily Post workout. Real talk. Healthy tips and tricks. And honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember, that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace Israel because you're worth it.