Beef Up to Slim Down

If you know me you know I feel “strongly” about strength training (weight training) and its benefit for weight loss. If you have been primarily working out doing aerobic exercise for weight loss you may wonder “isn’t this good enough”? The answer is no, not really. Here is why. If you are overweight and you are trying to lose weight the primary goal is to create a calorie deficit. This simply means you take in fewer calories than you burn.

When we start to reduce our calories by diet alone we will of course lose weight. Add some aerobic exercise and we will increase our weight loss by causing a greater calorie deficit due to the added physical activity and calorie expenditure. Here is the catch. When we lose weight we lose fat. That’s what we want. Unfortunately, we also lose lean muscle tissue at the same time, which is not what we want. The most effective way to keep losing as much weight as possible is to lose as much fat as possible and maintain or add muscle tissue.

You may be wondering why does this occur? Now follow me closely on this idea. Let’s say I am 250 pounds. Every movement I make I am lifting and moving those 250 pounds. When I get out of a chair, it is similar to me doing a squat with a very heavy weight. Over time my muscles have actually gotten stronger and larger from the effort of moving around this large heavy weight, my body! When I start to lose weight my muscles will actually need to work less than when I was heavy and result in a net lose of muscle mass. It would be similar to going to the gym and working out with lighter and lighter weights.

Now, here is another interesting concept. Your muscles are the primary calorie burning tissue in your body. It burns calories 24 hours a day 7 days per week. It even burns calories even when you are sleeping. Think about this comparison. Imagine a large eight cylinder pickup truck sitting at a stop light just idling. Now compare this truck to a small little 4 cylinder car idling right next to it. Both vehicles are standing still just idling. Which vehicle is burning more gas just hanging out? You guessed it, the big truck. This is similar to the way your body works. If you have more muscle you will burn more calories just sitting and watching American Idol on TV or just sleeping.

The most effective way you can reduce muscle loss and gain more muscle is by strength training, also called weight training or weight lifting. When we have more muscle we rev up and speed up our metabolism resulting in more calories consumed. When I speak of strength training I do get some objections. Here are the most common ones I hear; Woman are often afraid if they strength train they will end up looking like a female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. That is just not going to happen. Woman will tone and tighten their muscles, not get large muscles. Women just do not have the correct biochemical makeup to get large muscles, I’m talking testosterone. We guys have more of it and you woman don’t have enough. Testosterone is what makes men get large muscles. Also, getting tone, maintaining or building some additional muscle will not take an enormous amount of time in the gym. All it takes is 20 to 40 minutes 2 to 3 times per week, that's it! Now let’s hit the gym and start lifting some weights!

No gym? No problem. There are plenty of exercises that you can do with just your body weight, so there goes that excuse. Push-ups, chin-ups, dips, single or double leg squats and lunges are very effective strength exercises. Other alternatives are to use exerbands, exertubes and TRX suspension systems. These are very effective, inexpensive and portable strength training devices. When I travel this is what I throw into my bag. If for nothing else it adds a few pounds to my bags!

Stuart