But instead of feeling terrified, Joseph—a personal chef with a nonstop schedule and eight grandkids who are central to it—is hopeful. Excited, even. “I just want to feel like myself again,” she says. What made Joseph and the eight other women at this shoot throw embarrassment to the wind? The potential of our new Fit in 10 program, which—our working theory went—would help them lose weight and get stronger, firmer, and more energized, simply by adding just 10 minutes of smart strength training a day. We know what you’re thinking: 10 minutes of exercise a day with amazing results sounds too good to be true. Yet mighty-but-mini training protocols—some as brief as 4 minutes—continue to show up in gyms across the country because they work very well, often doubling the weight loss and health benefits of slow-and-steady exercise. The problem is that many of them are intense enough to kill your spirit. We wanted a more practical plan that even the busiest, most overwhelmed among us would be willing to try. We settled on 10 minutes—the time you could find, say, right before you hop in the shower or while dinner cooks in the oven—mostly because we believed it was truly doable, but also because research conveys that 10 minutes of simple movement makes a huge difference. For instance, when sedentary, postmenopausal women added just 10 minutes of light walking a day for 6 months, they significantly increased their overall fitness, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. If you could see that much improvement from 10 minutes of walking, imagine if you spent that time doing metabolism-revving sculpting moves. MORE: 5 Ways To Drink Green Tea or Weight Loss Next, we partnered with trainer Larysa DiDio, a mom of two who’s helped hundreds of women reshape their bodies, to create the 8-week plan. DiDio made sure that each of the eight workouts hit that busy-woman sweet spot: ridiculously effective moves that bum fat, target the areas we all want to tone (like the belly, butt, hips, thighs, and arms), and are done in 10 minutes flat. To prevent motivation-sucking boredom and plateaus, DiDio designed the plan so it was easy to progress no matter the level at which you started or how much weight you had to lose. Click here for the full Fit In 10: Total-Body Transformation DVD set that helped our testers lose up to 21 pounds! So we had the plan. Now we had to put it to the test, not in a lab, but with real women in the real world. Enter Merlyn Joseph and her compatriots, all of whom juggle laundry lists of responsibilities that would threaten to elbow out even 10 minutes of effort. The oldest was 59, the youngest 31. Some hadn’t worked out in years, while others walked or ran a few times a week but still couldn’t shake those extra pounds. For 2 months, they committed to eating clean and doing at least one Fit in 10 routine each day. If they missed a workout—say, they had an incredibly crazy Tuesday or wanted a Sunday off—they’d do two routines the next day to make up the time. Within the first few weeks, our panelists started to notice changes. Their energy levels were up, they were sleeping better, and stubborn pounds that hadn’t budged in years started to fall away. And they were actually enjoying it. “I was so weak before, but now I can feel myself getting stronger,” Joseph told us after week 2, laughing about how she’d started bringing her laptop into the kitchen so she could get a workout in while pots simmered on the stove. “And it’s working—my belly is finally getting flatter.” Joseph wasn’t the only one who loved the flexibility. Chelsea Streifeneder, a Pilates instructor who’d been so busy teaching that she didn’t have time for her own workouts, would squeeze in a routine whenever she had a few spare minutes between clients. (Here’s one of the Fit In 10 workouts.) Mom of three Tasia Hadden had 10 minutes between when she got home from work and when the school bus dropped off her kids—and that became her workout window. “I honestly don’t even change,” she says. “I do it in my jeans, but I get it done.” MORE: 8 Things That Happen When You FInally Stop Drinking Diet Soda By the end of the program, the nine women had lost a combined total of 115 pounds, dropping an average of 13 pounds each, with some panelists losing a jaw-dropping 15 to 21 pounds. Kelly Wallace, whose travel-heavy job had made it impossible for her to get to the gym, couldn’t believe that squeezing in the routines (in a hotel room or airport, in front of her computer) had her fitting into clothes a full size smaller. “It was just so easy to fit this plan around the rest of my life,” she says. Shelley Dell hadn’t been able to zip up her work uniform since menopause shifted her weight to her belly. Now, after she lost 5 inches around her waist, her vest fits easily. “Everything is better—how my clothes look, the tone in my body, my mental clarity, my mood.” Ten minutes a day was transforming women’s entire lives. Asked how such a dramatic change was possible, strength-training expert Wayne Westcott says: “Strength-train for 10 minutes and you’ll burn about 80 calories during the workout and another 100 calories or so in the hours after you finish, as the body requires energy to repair and build muscle.” Multiply all that by 2 months, and you have roughly 11,000 calories, which translates to about a 3-pound loss of body fat. So how did they lose the rest of it? The clean eating certainly helped, but Westcott says the other probable factors speak to strength training’s many benefits. “You also gain lean muscle, which further boosts your metabolism. Plus, resistance training increases energy and shows results quickly, and people instinctively build on that momentum. So you eat a little bit better or walk your dog a little longer—and it adds up fast.” A few weeks later, when Joseph comes back for her “after” photo, she’s so lit up she doesn’t even seem like the same person. Her belly is firmer and flatter than it’s been in years, but it’s not just her waist and pants size that have shifted. She’s stronger, too—and she can’t stop smiling. “It’s really incredible,” she says. “When I look in the mirror, I can’t even believe it’s me, and I’m functioning at 110%. I feel like I have the body and energy of a 20-year-old.”
