How Building Muscle Helps You Lose Fat

Want to lose some of that unwanted body fat? If so, you may want
to start hitting the weights.

That’s because the more lean muscle tissue you have, the more
calories you burn at rest, as well as when you’re active. The
more muscle tissue you possess, the more energy your body will
require to maintain that muscle.

It gets that needed energy from burning and utilizing calories.
And again, the more calories you burn, the more likely fat loss
to occur.

Muscle is a very metabolically active tissue. It takes a lot of
work for your body to maintain it. Fat, on the other hand, takes
no work to maintain. It just sits there, lumped together like,
well, fat.

This is an important concept in fat loss because the more lean
muscle tissue you can build, the more calories that will be
burned off, without you having to do any extra work. Your muscle
will burn off more calories 24/7 than if you didn’t have that
extra lean muscle.

This makes the case for why weight training, also known as
resistance training, is so important to include in any weight
loss program.

So if you can add a couple pounds of lean muscle to your frame,
you’re going to burn off more calories, even while sleeping,
than if you didn’t have that extra muscle.

The more calories you burn off at rest, the more likely that the
calories burned off during exercise will create a calorie
deficit in your body. A calorie deficit is a must for weight
loss to occur.

Weight gain occurs from consuming more calories than your body
burns off during the day. Since there is no deficit of calories,
your body does not have to dip into stored body fat to get
energy. In fact, due to the surplus, it stores the extra
calories as body fat.

If you create a calorie deficit, meaning, your body has used all
of the energy from calories it has received from food and it
still needs more (like to support muscle tissue) it is going to
go after your fat stores to get that energy.

Fat is a highly condensed form of energy. So, when your body
starts taking fat from fat stores to use as energy, that is how
weight loss occurs.

Weight training may benefit any weight loss program, possibly
more than any other component.

Weight training can be a future investment for permanent weight
loss and weight maintenance because as you continue to lose
stored body fat and gain lean muscle, your muscle will continue
to aid in the calorie burning process.

As there becomes less stored body fat to use as energy, the
muscle tissue will start to directly utilize the calories you
consume on a daily basis.

Since there is now more muscle tissue than there is fat to
utilize calories, chances of storing any excess calories as body
fat is greatly reduced.

Resistance training may offer the most benefit of all to women
past the age of menopause. It can help prevent or reverse the
effects of osteoporosis by strengthening and maintaining bone
density often lost by diet alone. So how much resistance
training is necessary for long-term weight loss to be successful
and to increase your lean muscle and strength?

Not as much as you would probably think. In fact, any more
weight/resistance training than 2 to 3 hours a week may be
counterproductive.

The best results I have witnessed while in the personal training
field come from 3 sessions a week with weights, less than an
hour each session.

Most people like the Monday, Wednesday, Friday approach to
weight training. This leaves Tuesday and Thursday for cardio,
which should be done separately from weight training.

The key to proper weight training is to establish a good
foundation in which to build upon, much like building a solid
foundation for a house.

So hire a trainer or check out a good program online. You can
find my proven muscle building and fat loss program below.

Bottom line, if you want to lose stubborn body fat, start
building muscle and you’ll soon see the pounds disappear.

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