I am a firm believer in strength training. Underneath that deep layer of fat is a layer of muscle waiting to be conditioned into shape, waiting to be utilized and serve its purpose. Strength training helps to prevent the loss of lean muscle mass, it burns calories, and it increases your metabolism.

Believe it or not, every time you see a loss on the scale, you’re not ONLY losing fat. You’re losing muscle as well.

I’ll come clean and say that I used to believe that muscle was burning 50 bajillion more calories than fat was. After some careful research, I discovered that a pound of muscle only burns 6 calories a day. However, a pound of fat is even less productive: only 2 calories a day.

That means your muscles are burning 3 times the amount of calories your fat is. Although the myth of muscles burning significantly more calories than fat has been exposed, all the articles I’ve found emphasize that muscle increases metabolism.

One of the most important factors affecting weight loss is metabolism. Why do you think it is recommended to eat five small meals a day? To keep your metabolism high. When you weight lift, you are essentially trying to tear the little fibers in your muscle tissue, which means your body has to rebuild it. That alone takes energy.

The more muscle you have, the better your body becomes at utilizing the nutrients you consume instead of storing them as fat. Weight training increases your basal metabolic rate, which means your body is burning more calories even while resting.

Weight training helps to tone, firm and shape your body. We all want washboard abs. Well, I do at least. Flabby triceps and jiggly thighs? Weights! And by weights, I don’t mean only dumbbells and machines. Your body is one of your greatest tools when it comes to strength training. Squats, push-ups, pull-ups, tricep dips, those are all fantastic exercises to do without belonging to the gym.

Can’t get your cardio in at the gym? Not to worry. Do squats coupled with push-ups and you’ll get your heart rate up in no time.

Cardio alone is simply not enough. To effectively lose weight and to tone up your body, you need to strength train. This is not to say ditch the cardio. Cardio is a MUST but add in the weight training too!

As for you ladies out there that don’t lift because you think you’ll end up looking like a beastly man, it won’t and can’t happen unless you’re shooting up some serious ‘roids. Genetically, we’re just not meant to be as bulky, but we are meant to have muscle.

My strength training goals:
1. Do a set of ten real push-ups.
2. Do one real pull-up.
3. Do one real tricep dip.
4. Do one tricep push-up.
5. Do 200 squats in a row.

What are yours?

Tagged as: strength, toning, weight lifting

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