Want to Change Your Body? The Workout Rules to Follow

It can be frustrating to feel like you are logging hours in the gym without seeing the efforts manifest on your body. What gives? You may be doing it wrong, says fitness trainer and healthy chef Katy Clark, a former contestant on Food Network Star. I spoke to her at the recent International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association convention about how to ramp up your workouts and see results; check out her top tips here.

1. Reassess your workout: It's time to ask yourself — are you really working out to make a change? A good workout will leave you feeling in one of three ways, Katy says. "You need to be sweating, you need to be breathing heavy, or you need to be sore the next day," she advises. "If you didn't hit any of those three, it wasn't a good workout."
2. Be consistent: Find something you like so you'll stick with it, says Katy. "Anything you do consistently is going to bring about change," she says. "Challenge yourself, grab a friend, but nonetheless, just get out there." If you think you're too busy to fit in a workout, Katy says to think of it this way: "One hour of your day is just four percent of your day. Everyone's got four percent of their day to get a workout in."
3. Use weights: Katy believes the best results come from weight training with weights heavy enough to fatigue muscles at 10 reps. "Whatever weight you're bearing — if you're doing five pounds, if you're doing 10 pounds — if you're not tired by [rep] number 10, then you need to go a little bit heavier. If you are consistently doing that, you're going to see changes in your strength and in your muscle mass." An added bonus? "It's empowering when you are in that weight room and you're the chick rocking it,"