You slave away every day at the gym working towards your goals. Your diet is keyed in and you haven’t slipped up at all. You drink plenty of water. You sleep 8 plus hours a night. You know that summer is right around the corner (it is in less than a month) and you want to look your best. However, some days you just feel discouraged. You feel as if you are working super hard, doing everything correctly, yet you aren’t seeing the results you hoped. And maybe some of you have slipped up the past month and are in need of getting back at it for summer.
Sporteluxe consulted a few of their favorite trainers for their expert opinions on how quickly we can expect to get back into shape to be ready for summer. Here’s what they said.
via @revolve
First off, there isn’t a *magic number* of workouts you need to hit in order to start seeing changes in your body—mostly because every person is totally different. “Nutrition outside of the workouts, individual goals and the type of new routine/current routine all play a huge role in the results the client is looking for!” says personal trainer and owner of Mint Body Arcadia Caitlin Smith. Generally speaking, “six to eight weeks of a consistent, new routine” can create change, says Smith.
For someone who’s brand new to working out, results can be noticed in as little as a week. According to Sebastien Lagree of Lagree Fitness, “The body should adapt right away if the workout is effective, so I think that it is possible to see results after the first session and definitely within 5 sessions.” If you’ve been generally fit your entire life, it might take longer to see results.
Yes, exercise is effective. But in order to see faster results, you should take a discerning look at your nutrition. The combination of exercise and dietary changes can exponentially increase results, says Pilates Platinum trainer Kourtney McCullough: “If someone who doesn’t usually eat healthfully begins adopting a diet lower in sugar and processed foods, their bodily inflammation may go down within the first day or two making them appear thinner. This may not mean immediate fat loss, but looking less bloated and inflamed can prove to be a big motivator to stay on track.”
If you’re not sore the day after a workout, you’re probably not working out intensely enough to make effective changes in your body composition. Shaking, sweating, and muscle fatigue during a sweat session are all good things, says Lagree! “You should feel the difference after the 1st session.”
McCullough agrees—intensity matters if your goal is to improve overall fitness. “If you’ve started a new workout routine and you’re not sore for the next day or two after, you need to up the intensity level. Depending on what workout you’ve chosen, that could mean upping the resistance or adding more repetitions to really fatigue your muscles.”
Don’t burn yourself out, though. Taking rest days between workouts is just as important as actual exercise in order to see results. Let’s repeat in case that didn’t sink in—you need to take a day or two off in order for your body to change for the better. According to McCullough, “Your body changes in the hours between your gym time as your muscles repair themselves.”
Content credited to Michelle Pellizzon for Sporteluxe.
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