Hi Leah ! I have been doing your workouts with other things for nearly 6 years now and love them ! I am 52 post menopausal but am in very very good shape, did pilates training and am a certified mat teacher but do not teach...I just did it for my own knowledge. Hey In isolation I am finding that I am getting an unwanted muffin top , I think its the hormonal shift in my body as I work out every day and am very careful eater etc,. No matter what I do I cant seem to get rid of this tire growing and its really depressing me. SHould I be using heavioer weights? What do you recommend for this area ? I am so annoyed and upset ,,
Thank you !
Wendy

Hi Wendy!
Thank you for reaching out! So happy to hear you love the workouts! I am sorry to hear you are frustrated! It is of course maddening when you are consistent with workouts and then notice a little weight gain around your mid section. Since the whole quarantine started, we may find that we haven’t been quite as active as we typically are during our normal routine even with some walks and normal working out. Even if you have kept up with your normal training schedule, there is this thing called (NEAT) that may be responsible. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is any movement of the body outside of voluntary exercise like fidgeting, walking from one room to the next, working in the yard, standing/sitting, and cleaning the house for example. These movements add up at the end of the day and impact our total daily energy expenditure. Since we have been confined to our homes, it’s likely a lot of us are moving less even if we are working out. If you just think back to before isolation, we were running errands ( now maybe one grocery store trip a week versus a few times a week), going shopping for an afternoon, going places, or just being active outside the perimeter of your home. If you count your steps, you may notice it’s more difficult to get so many in every day since this quarantine. Usually if I go for walk, I can count it as exercise but because I’m not walking anywhere anymore I need to be walking every day to make up for what I typically do during my usual routine. Walking into my kids preschool, walking my kids onto the field for sports, and running into the post office for example. This is movement we don’t think about but has a definite impact on our total energy expenditure. So, since you watch your calories and diet closely, I would advise more cardio/ movement and maybe more resistance training as well (perhaps train heavier if you have been using the same amount of weight) and brisk walking or jogging if you like to jog. Also, make sure you have enough protein in diet. I like cardio intervals but do what you like. I recommend walking every day( once things are back to normal one or two cardio
sessions a week is good) and at least 3 hours of resistance training. Ideally, 5 days a week of resistance training if you are not following one of the training plans. You can do splits - upper and lower with core work on a few days. If you aren’t feeling challenged with workouts that include weight, yes you should increase weight to cause more metabolic stress and increase training stimulus. And try to stay calm through all of this- I’ve been doing more yoga to try to keep my stress/ cortisol levels down. Hope this helps! Keep me posted!

Oh my goodness Wendy! You are in NYC during all of this! I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, so hopefully now things are easing up a little and you can get outside more. Yes, your body is just used to burning more calories during all the walking and normal routine. Increasing your RMR with heavier resistance training will help, but the 15 pound weight will not create any bulk. Hilarious you grabbed one before quarantine hit- there has been a shortage of finding dumbbells and weights too! It will help though as you add some weight to your regular barre work, lunges at the bar, or barre work that your body has become quite accustomed to with body weight alone. It takes a lot more than the Iron Barre workouts I offer to build a lot of muscle to the point some women may feel "bulkier". I even created the Iron Barre Select program if this is a big concern for women in their upper or lower body. Now following a periodized program of high volume/rep range of 10-12 using progressively heavier weights every week will increase muscle mass overtime and yes some women do feel bulkier One reason is the water retention that happens after the microscopic tears from resistance training for a few days (the "swell" that happens post workout). But, also some women just don't like more muscle on their body and their physique changes. Some women are thrilled at more definition and feeling more muscular instead of flabby. It's a process with the balance of losing body fat and increasing muscle mass. I find at the 3 month mark some women tend to give up on weights all together because their clothes may start feeling tighter. If body fat stays the same and you increase muscle mass at the same time, yes that is where the bulky feeling comes in too. Keep your body close to ideal body fat ranges will help with this. But, as we age we do lose muscle mass which in turn decreases our RMR (how many calories we burn every day), so increasing our metabolism is beneficial in the long run. Weight training is a preventative to a decreasing metabolism brought on by age. I personally really like feeling stronger with heavy weights and it carries out in my daily life, even if I may have more shape to my arms and my jacket fits a little tighter. If you don't like the way you look after weight training for 3-6 months, you can always go back to body weight training and the way you looked before. Moreover, you can be selective which areas of the body you may want to ease up on heavier weights (Iron Barre Select). But, if you have never tried incorporating heavier weights, you may be surprised when you start getting leaner and improve the shape of the physique.

Wow Leah thank you so much for this informative reply! I am super enjoying your Pilates based workouts now and also the hip and leg “ elongation “ series . I’ve dumped the weights for the time being as I do think the Mat and the leg extension and hip circles etc workouts really give me such great results and so fast ! Your workouts are so effective and creative and hard . I never get bored with your great choreography and succinct yet super challenging workouts ! Thanks again for your replies and yes time to get out and do some cardio as well ! We are starting to get outside a bit more now !
Thanks again !
Wendy