Wait! Don't Skip the Weights!

I hate to see most people interested in weight loss, especially women, avoid the weights at the gym. Most simply come in, get set up on their favorite cardio machine, workout for an hour then leave. Others may take an aerobics class, like my spin class for instance, where it is mostly cardio with a little resistance training. But skipping out on exercises be it with weights, bands, or your own body weight= you missing and integral part of weight loss. Strength building exercises do not make you big. They can if that is your goal and you lift very large amounts. But adding weight or resistance to your exercises is key in building lean muscle mass, which in turn charges and speeds up your metabolism. Let’s break it down.

In order to preserve or even build muscles, strength training is necessary. Exercise puts a stress on your muscles. This results in your body tearing  down those muscles and rebuilding them to be stronger to adapt to the next similar stressful situation. This is the body’s amazing adaptive mechanism coming into play. Note that the process of breaking down and rebuilding the muscles is very energy intensive. The increased metabolic rate and energy expenditure of your body could stay at a higher level for more than 24 hours after the exercise session.

Muscles burn 6 calories per pound a day while fat cells burn 2 calories per pound a day. If you lost about 2 pounds of fat and put on 2 pounds of muscle, your daily energy requirements would increase by 10 calories. This 10 calorie difference sustained over 1 year means you will burn over an extra pound of fat over the course of a year just by keeping the extra muscle that you built. This is fatty adipose tissue (yuk) that you will burn while laying poolside or painting your nails. Build the muscles once and let them work for you constantly.

Strength training is essential for maintaining weight loss. The large energy demands of strength training itself and the recovery period thereafter help to boost metabolism. Strength training should form the foundation of your fitness regimen.