Comprehensive Beginner’s Guide to Women’s Fitness: Workouts, Nutrition, and Busting Myths
Starting a fitness journey is one of the best and exciting things you can do to maintain and improve health. This is because physical activity has so many health benefits and can help you achieve good health. It can also give you attractive body shape, weight loss, improved sleep and positive self-esteem and lots more. So, this beginner’s guide to women’s fitness will be of help to you.
Women sometimes may feel overwhelmed about how and where to begin their fitness program. This is especially when they have so many workouts, diets, and wellness programs to do. So, this guide to women’s fitness will provide you with a comprehensive and step-by-step beginner’s plan. And this will cover workout basics, essential nutrition tips, and common myths to help you start well and remain motivated.
Why Start a Fitness Journey with a Guide to Women’s Fitness?
No matter your reason for trying out a fitness journey you will surely benefit from it. You may want to improve your health, reduce weight, increase strength or energy. You may also want to boost your confidence in some areas of your life, you have made the right choice. It is good to let you know that regular exercises help to bring good and lasting changes to your health.
Also, developing a fitness routine can help your mental health by reducing stress, improving your mood and focus. Also, this can make you to relax well. So, let’s see the guide to women’s fitness that will help in your workout routines.
Step 1: Set Realistic Goals for Women’s Fitness
It is very important for you to take a moment and think about the reason why you want to become fit. When you know why, you need to set realistic goals and plan how to achieve them to remain motivated and on track (Exercise Daily Magazine, 2024).
1. Define Your Fitness Goals:
You need to plan for specific objectives and goals that are achievable. For example, “I want to walk 10,000 steps every day.” Or “I want to complete a 5 Kilometer in three months (per day).” According to research when you walk 10,000 steps a day you will get both physical and mental health benefits. These may include a healthy weight loss, quick recovery from illness, improved joint health, boosting your mood and brain function.
2. Track Your Fitness Progress:
You also need to monitor your achievement on daily bases. There are number of tools you can use to check whether you are meeting up with your target or not. You can use a fitness app or journal to monitor and record your workouts, steps, and how your body is adjusting to your exercise each day. When you track your progress, you will know how far you have achieved in your goals (Exercise Daily Magazine, 2024).
3. Remain Flexible with Your Fitness:
Remember that fitness is a journey which will take your body sometime to adjust. So you may not meet up with your objectives some days.
Step 2: Guide to Women’s Fitness Basics for Beginners
Many women keep asking themselves, “Where should I start my workout journey from?” If you are one of them, then the following simple steps will help you to begin well and plan a balanced fitness routine. Some of the workout types that will benefit you a lot and make your journey easy are explained below:
1. Cardiovascular Exercise:
Now what are the Benefits of this kind of exercise?
When you follow any of these workout routines your body will surely improve in many ways. According to Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, MFMER (2023) Cardiovascular exercise can give you many health benefits, your workouts can:
- Improve your mood and energy
- Enhance your brain function
- Manage your arthritis
- Increase your metabolic rate
- Improve your heart muscle, and lung fitness
- Regulate your weight and burn calories
- Give you stronger immune system
How should you do cardiovascular exercise to get the most from it as a beginner?
From my own experience, to get the best out of your workouts, you will need to engage in cardio activity for at least three days every week in a well spread-out pattern. For instance, you can do them on alternate days. Or if you have more time during weekends, you can plan the first two days to be on Saturday and Sunday, then add one more day in the middle of the week. As a beginner, it is important to start with low-to-moderate intensity activities such as walking, biking, or using an elliptical machine.
If you do any of them for 20-30 minutes, three times a week you will get the result you want, though you may need to increase the time later for maximum outcome. As you build stamina, you can add others like jogging or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) sessions such as jumping, push-up intervals and body weight squats for to increase endurance.
2. Training workout:
Benefits: Strength training exercise is important for building your muscle, increasing bone density and rate of your metabolism. But remember to use the best guide to women’s fitness for optimum result.
How should you do strength training exercise to get the best result as a beginner?
It is a good idea to start with bodyweight exercises such as squats, lunges, and push-ups or using light dumbbells for your workout. Start small and then increase weight gradually. Target to have at least two sessions every week, each focusing on different muscle groups (legs, arms, core) and their contractions to increase strength.
3. Flexibility and Mobility Exercises:
Benefits: Stretching increases flexibility, reduces muscle tension, and helps prevent injuries. According to Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, MFMER (2023) better flexibility may: improve your performance in physical activities, decrease your risk of injuries and help your joints move through their full range of motion. They also said it can increase muscle blood flow, enable your muscles to work most effectively and improve your feelings and ability to do your daily activities (MFMER, 2023).
How should you do your flexibility and mobility exercises as a beginner?
- Incorporate a flexibility and mobility routine at the beginning or end of each workout (strength training), but start slowly. This means you will start with a small goal and gradually build up. Try yoga or gentle stretching sessions to work on flexibility, especially if you sit at a desk all day. Hold the stretch for 15–30 seconds, or up to 2 minutes if you want to increase flexibility. Breathe as you stretch and try to relax, and this can be done for at least 2 to 4 days every week. You can also include a ten to fifteen minutes session that involves breath work, static stretching, and dynamic stretching.
- Core Workouts: Core workouts involve series of exercises that can support, strengthen and stabilize the muscles in your whole-body parts. This include your abdominal area, back, hips, and pelvic region.
- Benefits: A strong core exercises can help improve posture and balance, make you stable and give you an overall body strength. These workouts will also relieve back pain, and help you perform better at work or in sports.
- Beginners’ Guide: Include some exercises like planks, Russian twist, bicycle crunches, side plank, and leg raises to strengthen your core. For a start two to three 10-minute core sessions a week will help you get great results.
Step 3: Essential Nutrition Tips with Your Guide to Women’s Fitness
You need to eat good diet that will give your body what it needs to function well. If you want to achieve your fitness goals, try the beginner guide to women’s fitness. So, let’s look at some important nutrition tips that will help you remain strong during and after your workout routine.
Eat More Foods Rich in Protein:
Protein rich foods such as eggs, chicken, beans, or tofu will help to repair and grow your muscles, especially after workouts so try to add them in your meal each day. You can also benefit from a protein shake or drink to increase your protein intake (American Heart Association, 2024):
Choose Complex Carbohydrate diets to Sustain your Energy:
Complex carbohydrates, such as a slice of whole-grain bread, take longer time to digest and absorb, and will make you to feel full for longer time. These types of diets give you energy you need for your exercise over a longer period. Carbohydrate foods are your body’s primary source of energy, so you need to eat some of them to give you the stamina for your workouts. You can go for Carbohydrate rich meals like oats, quinoa, and sweet potatoes to avoid blood sugar crashes. I will suggest you eat a small portion of these energy giving diets about 30 minutes before workout program to stabilize your energy levels (American Heart Association, 2024).
Include Some Healthy Fats to Balance Your Hormones:
Healthy fats from good sources can support hormonal balance and provide a long-lasting energy source. Some good fats that do great jobs in balancing your hormone and give you energy when you want to maintain fitness include nuts, seeds, fatty, cold-water fish, fatty grassfed, pastured meat, olives (and olive oil), avocados and eggs. Some authorities suggest you incorporate healthy fats into your breakfast to start the day with steady and stable energy (American Heart Association, 2024).
Remain Hydrated all throughout:
For optimal performance, recovery, and overall well-being you need to ensure copious fluid intake. target to drink at least 8 glasses of water every day and increase the amount on workout days. It is important to keep a water bottle with you throughout the day to remind you of hydrating yourself (American Heart Association, 2024).
Try to Eat Whole Foods During Your Active Period:
Whole foods are meals that are not processed or minimally processed and are almost in their natural state and are usually high in nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and fibre, and low in added sugar, salt, and fat. It more beneficial to focus on nourishing your body with whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains (such as oats, brown rice and barley), nuts, beans, fish, shellfish and eggs. I will suggest that you plan your meals ahead before your workouts begin to avoid going for processed snacks which are not healthy (American Heart Association, 2024).
Step 4: Handling Common Fitness Myths About Women’s Fitness
The world of fitness is full of myths that can discourage and confuse women, especially beginners like you. Let us quickly look at some common misconceptions that could affect your decisions to exercise as you should.
Myth 1: “Lifting Weights Will Make Me Bulky”
Reality: Women generally don’t produce enough testosterone as men do so they don’t get bulky muscles. But, they could if they are taking testosterone supplement or eating far more calories than they are burning off. Instead, strength training helps to tone your body, increase muscle strength, and boost your metabolic process. Therefore, I suggest you handle your workouts with your guide to women’s fitness.
Myth 2: “You Must Do Workouts Every Day to See Results”
Reality: You need some days to rest which should be an important part of your workout plans because you need to give your muscles time to recover and grow stronger. So as a beginner, engaging in physical activity up to three to four days every week with rest in between is a great to start to get result.
Myth 3: “You Can Target Fat Loss in Specific Areas”
Reality: Thinking that you can just loose fat in a particular part of the body alone without your workouts affecting other areas is not true. Know this, fat loss takes place in across the whole body as you exercise and maintain a healthy diet. Consistent Cardiovascular workouts, strength training exercise, and an adequate diet intake are the best ways to reduce your body fat over time.
Myth 4: “Cardiovascular exercise is the Best Way to Lose Weight”
Reality: Cardiovascular exercise burns calories, but a combination of two or more types of workouts gives better results than doing only one. For example, when you combine Cardiovascular exercise and strength training workouts you are more likely to burn body fats and build your muscles. Strength training exercise can help you burn more calories even at rest by increasing lean muscle mass (Chica, 2017).
Myth 5: “Eating Less is the Key to Losing Weight”
Reality: It is not advisable to restrict your calories too much during active period because it can make you to lose muscle and can slow your metabolism. Then, what should you do instead? Target to eat adequate nutrient-rich meals that support your body’s energy and protein needs at that time.
Step 5: Staying Motivated with Your Guide to Women’s Fitness
Staying motivated can be challenging, especially for beginners, but the following few steps can help you keep moving:
1. Celebrate every little progress:
You should try to celebrate small wins in your fitness journey, no matter how small. This may just be like completing a workout task or adding an additional activity. Also always keep track of your progress (British Heart Foundation, 2021).
2. Find a Workout Buddy:
It most time motivating when you have someone to exercise with and this can make workouts more enjoyable and keep you accountable to each other (British Heart Foundation, 2021).
3. Consider adding variety:
When you have varieties of activities to do during your workouts you will enjoy it more. This can also help prevent boredom especially when you try new workouts, join a class, or explore outdoor activities like hiking or biking (Exercise Daily Magazine, 2024).
4. Reward Yourself:
Always plan to reward yourself for reaching particular milestones. You can get a new workout outfit for yourself, go for relaxing massage, or buy fitness gadget to stay motivated (Exercise Daily Magazine, 2024). So, in your guide to women’s fitness, plan for rewards for yourself.
5. Remind Yourself of Your Reason for exercising:
When you feel unmotivated, go back to the reasons why you started your fitness journey. You should also imagine how better you will feel as you get stronger and healthier in your workouts. Also, using your guide to women’s fitness regularly will help.
From all we have explained you have seen that beginning your fitness journey is a courageous process that will help you to become healthier and stronger. All women need to know that it is possible to achieve fitness with commitment and courage and involves progress. There will be days that you will feel like not exercising, but consistency and self-compassion will help you achieve your workout goals. Please focus on your specific goals, learn what works for your body, and ignore unnecessary fitness myths, then you will be ready for good health, fitness, wellness, and confidence.
REFERENCES
American Heart Association. (2024). Food as Fuel Before, During and After Workouts. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/food-as-fuel-before-during-and-after-workouts
British Heart Foundation. (2021). Fun exercises: 6 ways to make exercise more enjoyable. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/activity/fun-exercises
Carlson, C and Breitowich, A (2024). 20 Best Strength Training Exercises to Hit Every Major Movement Pattern. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/g27393163/strength-training-exercises/
Chica, B. (2017). Top 5 Fitness Myths. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://aftannfit.com/top-5-fitness-myths/
Creveling, M and Marko, T. (2024). The 7 Best Leg Exercises for Mobility and Flexibility. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.health.com/fitness/mobility-workout
Exercise Daily Magazine. (2024). Best Ways to Add Variety to Your Workout Routine. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://exercisedaily.com/best-ways-to-add-variety-to-your-workout-routine/
Harvard Medical School. (2024). Cardio Exercise. Retrieved December 21, 2024, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/cardio-exercise
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, MFMER (2023). Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity. Retrieved December 14, 2024, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389#