For years, women were taught that if we wanted to change our bodies, we needed to burn more calories. Walk farther. Run longer. Take another class. Get on the treadmill and stay there until the machine told us we had done enough. Somewhere along the way, exercise became almost synonymous with cardio, especially when weight was part of the conversation.
But what if this season of your life is asking for something different? What if instead of constantly asking your body to burn more, you began asking it to become stronger?
That is what caught my attention in the Healthline article I was reading about why people exercise. One of the trainers interviewed, Charlee Atkins, talked about once believing that doing 15 indoor cycling classes a week was healthy. As she got older, her thinking changed, and she began emphasizing strength training and what it allowed her body to do. The article as a whole shifts the exercise conversation away from simply changing how your body looks and toward what movement allows you to gain - strength, function, energy, mobility, and the ability to keep participating in your life.
I love that perspective for Body Bella women because I don’t want the next chapter of your life to become another exercise punishment plan. You have already spent enough years being told to eat less and move more. Movement can have a much bigger purpose than compensating for what you ate or trying to make the scale move faster.
This is one reason I love the idea of lifting heavier things. Not recklessly, and not because everyone needs to become a weightlifter, but because your muscles deserve to be challenged. There is something very different about walking into your later years thinking, “How many calories can I burn today?” versus asking, “What am I doing today that helps me stay strong enough to live the life I want?”
Think about what strength means outside a gym. Carrying your own suitcase. Getting up from the floor. Moving furniture. Working in the garden. Picking up a grandchild. Hiking somewhere beautiful on vacation and knowing your legs can get you there. Continuing to say yes to experiences because your body is capable of participating in them.
Cardio still has a place. Walking is wonderful. Moving your body is wonderful. This isn’t about replacing one extreme with another. It is about recognizing that doing more cardio is not automatically the answer every time a woman wants to improve her health or change her body.
Perhaps your next question isn’t, “How can I exercise more?”
Perhaps it is, “How can I become stronger?”
That is a very different relationship with your body. You are no longer trying to wear it down. You are building it up.
And that is the kind of body I want you taking with you into everything that comes next.
Keep going,
Dr. Brookh Lyons
Founder, Body Bella
You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be supported.
Book a consult or Explore the Body Bella experience
To read the article that inspired this Body Bella observation: Why I Exercise: Real People Weigh In on What Keeps Them Going - Healthline
Body Bella Transformations LLC
2920 S Webster Ave #101
Green Bay, WI 54301
(920) 695-5561
