Strength and movement: the guides
Keeping muscle while the scales drop, and the simplest ways to get stronger without a gym.
4 guides by Sian Anderson. Every clinical claim links to its source. Information, not medical advice. Updated 21 October 2026.
Part of the weight lost on any diet or medicine is muscle. Strength exercise twice a week, which the UK Chief Medical Officers recommend for every adult, is how you keep it. These guides start at home with no kit and build from there, with a guide to your pelvic floor along the way.
Every guide in this section
Strength training at home: 20 minutes, no kit, twice a week
Six moves that cover the whole body, how many to do, how to make them harder without buying anything, and how to fit two sessions into a week. Written for women starting from nothing.
Walking: the exercise that fits a weight loss jab
The 150-minute weekly target, what brisk means, why a ten-minute walk after meals helps the slow stomach, and how to build from nothing to 30 minutes a day without a step counter obsession.
Pelvic floor, leaking and exercise: what weight loss fixes and what it does not
One in three women leak at some point. Losing 5 to 10% of body weight cuts leaking episodes by almost half in trials. The pelvic floor exercise that fixes most of the rest, how to exercise without making it worse, and when to ask for a physio.
Where this overlaps
Bodies do not sort themselves into chapters. These guides from other sections come up again and again alongside this one.
- Heart health after the menopause: the numbers to know (From first period to 70 and beyond)
- Protein on a small appetite: how much, and how to fit it in (Eating well on a smaller appetite)
- Bone health while losing weight: calcium, vitamin D and load (Women's health checks)
- Menopause weight gain: why the middle changes and what helps (Menopause and midlife)
- Constipation on a weight loss jab: fibre, fluid and what works (Eating well on a smaller appetite)
- Perimenopause, HRT and weight loss medicines (Weight loss medicines and women)
- Vaginal dryness, UTIs and bladder changes after the menopause (Menopause and midlife)
- Your body after birth: weight, breastfeeding and the jabs (From first period to 70 and beyond)
Strength and movement: questions
Do I need a gym to keep muscle on a weight loss jab?
No. Body weight exercises at home, done twice a week and made harder over time, are enough to start. The strength at home guide sets out a plan.
Other sections
- Menopause and midlife
- Periods, pain and hormones
- Being heard: women and medicine
- From first period to 70 and beyond
- Weight loss medicines and women
- Women's health checks
- Eating well on a smaller appetite
- All guides
Sources for this page
- New physical activity guidelines (UK Chief Medical Officers, GOV.UK)
UK weight loss medicine prices