You’re Working Out Consistently. So Why Isn’t It Adding Up?

“I work out three or four times a week.”

I hear some version of this all the time, usually followed by:

“So why am I not seeing more change?”

She’s doing the thing. The walks, the workouts, the gym. For the most part, she’s consistent.

And that matters.

But somewhere along the way, “I work out consistently” became “I’m doing what I need to do to get the result I want.”

Those aren’t always the same thing.

You did the thing. But what did the thing actually do?

Let’s say your workout is 45 minutes.

That’s about 3% of your day.

And we tend to give that 3% a LOT of credit.

We worked out, so we feel productive. We checked the box. We did something good for ourselves.

All true.

But if your goal is to get stronger, build muscle or change your body, I have another question:

How have your workouts progressed?

I ask women this constantly in conversation and in coaching, and sometimes they have a really hard time answering.

They’ve been working out for years, but they’re still using the same dumbbells they bought five years ago. Their run hasn’t really changed. They’re choosing random workouts from YouTube or an app based on what they feel like doing that day.

They’re consistent.

But they’re not necessarily progressing.

And before you think, “Well great. I finally got consistent and now you’re telling me that doesn’t count either?”

It absolutely counts.

Consistency is the first thing I want.

But once you have it, we need to ask what you’ve been consistent with.

If you’ve been doing roughly the same thing for years and you’re not getting stronger or seeing the changes you want, you may be putting in a lot of time while expecting a result your workout was never set up to create.

Think about saving money.

If you put $3 into your savings account every day, you are technically saving money.

You could proudly tell me, “Cindy, I haven’t missed a day!”

And I’d say, great.

But you can’t get to the end of the month and be pissed that there isn’t $10,000 sitting there.

The investment has to match the return you’re expecting.

Exercise works the same way.

If your goal is to move more, clear your head, feel better and keep a routine, your workouts may be doing exactly what you need them to do.

If you want to build muscle, get stronger or change your body composition, the question changes.

Is what you’re doing actually asking your body to make those changes?

Then we have the other 97%

Even if those 45 minutes are exactly what you need, we still have the rest of the day.

This is where I’ll often hear:

“But I eat healthy.”

Okay.

That tells me you eat healthy.

It doesn’t tell me whether you’re eating enough to train well and support muscle. And if fat loss is the goal, it doesn’t tell me whether your overall intake still puts you in a calorie deficit.

“Healthy” doesn’t automatically mean “matches my goal.”

Then there’s the other side.

You got your workouts in this week. You ate well Monday through Friday. You’ve been “good.”

So the weekend comes and there’s a little more room because, well...

I earned it.

Dinner out. A couple of drinks. An appetizer. Dessert. A few extra bites here and there.

None of those things are a problem on their own.

But your body doesn’t stop doing math because it’s the weekend.

It can take a long time to burn a few hundred calories and very little time to eat them back.

And it doesn’t have to happen right after the workout.

A little extra Friday, Saturday and Sunday can change the average of the entire week.

That’s how someone can truthfully say, “I work out consistently, I eat pretty healthy and I’m doing so much better than I used to,” and still be completely confused about why the result isn’t there.

All of those things can be true.

So is your workout actually not working?

Maybe it is.

Before you change programs again, add another workout, start doing more cardio or spend another night Googling the best workout for women over 40, zoom out.

You may be spending a lot of energy trying to fix the most obvious part of the plan without figuring out where the actual gap is.

Start with the workout itself.

Does it match the goal you have for it?

How do you know?

Are you stronger than you were six months ago? Have your weights, reps, pace, control or ability changed?

Then look at the rest of the week.

Does the way you eat support both your training and your goal? Does your weekend line up with what you’re trying to accomplish during the week? Are you recovering enough to keep getting stronger?

Because your body doesn’t separate your life into neat little boxes called exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress and weekend.

It gets the whole week.

So before you decide the answer is more effort, ask a harder question:

What exactly am I expecting my workouts to do for me, and does the rest of my week support that?

Maybe your workouts need to progress.

Maybe your food isn’t matching the goal as closely as you think.

Maybe your Monday-to-Friday effort is getting averaged out by what happens on the weekend.

Maybe it’s a combination.

The point is to stop assuming the workout is the problem just because that’s the easiest part to see.

If the result isn’t adding up, adding more exercise isn’t automatically the answer.

Find the part of the equation that isn’t adding up first.

If this made you realize there may be a gap between how much effort you’re putting in and what that effort is actually producing, come join us inside my free Facebook group, AOT Teaching Women To Be Healthy and Strong at 40 Plus.

I teach free trainings that help you understand what actually matters after 40, where your effort may be leaking, and what to adjust without changing everything at once.