The Best Tool For Losing Fat And Building Muscle
Resistance training is the best long-term tool for losing fat
and building muscle.
The more lean muscle tissue you have, the more calories you burn
at rest and on the move. 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 weight 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. Simply because 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.
Remember how 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.
Keep your weight training routine simple. It is more productive
to focus effectively on a few tasks (exercises) than it is to
work out with less intensity on many different ones.
On each set, try to progressively add a little more weight each
time. Keep records of your weight lifts so you can try to outdo
(progress) each and every workout!
Again, for the many weight loss and weight management benefits
of weight training to occur, you do not have to stay for hours
in the gym.
Give yourself 2 hours a week to do some form of resistance
training.
If you cannot make it to a gym, invest in a pair of
weight-adjustable dumbbells purchased from a nearby department
store that you can use at home.
In fact, for less than the cost of a 3 month gym membership, you
could probably purchase a great home gym set up with a couple
pairs of dumbbells and maybe a bench and mat.
If that is even not within budget, simply lift what you have
around the house, like water jugs (full, of course) or soup
cans, or rocks from the garden.
Resistance is resistance and having your body progressively lift
heavier weight will force it to become stronger and adapt to
this demand placed upon it.
When you force your body to adapt to this resistance, it does so
by creating new muscle tissue growth to handle the weight.
With this new tissue growth comes a new need for energy to
maintain this muscle tissue. That is when stored fat is used and
burned off.
That’s why weight training is the best tool for losing fat and
building muscle.
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