Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I often hear people saying they are afraid to lift weights because they don’t want to gain weight or look bigger. The error is in their perception, they couldn’t be father from the truth and here’s why…
Generally when we say we want to lose weight what we really mean is we want to lose fat, the loose fleshy stuff hanging from arms and thighs or spilling over into a muffin top. Be honest can you pinch some? If not, why read on you’re already a god or goddess. For everyone else, that doughy stuff between your fingers are the glad bags of the body. That’s right, fat is essentially stored energy in the form of fatty acids that can also contain fat soluble chemicals some even toxic.
Basically human fat comes in two kinds, visceral fat (the stuff around your organs) and subcutaneous fat (the stuff you’re pinching). Now let me just say in fats defense, that not all fat is bad. It’s necessary for insulation, protecting the body from shock, cell membrane integrity, and that previously mentioned stored energy; you know, incase you get stranded with no food. So, unless you’re planning on getting stranded for a really long, long time, maybe we should lose some of it.
To burn off fat safely, effectively and with long term results we should tackle it three ways, 1) diet (that’s obvious), 2)cardio ( burn it now) and 3) resistance exercise ( that’s right weight training). If you lose weight alone from diet as much as 25% of weight loss can come from lean body mass; that’s a significant hit to your metabolism. That means it would take less calories to gain the weight back and when you do the majority will come back as fat, meaning you’d be fatter even at the same weight. Conversely, weight training can increase lean body mass, increasing bone density (that’s good), strengthen connective tissue (also good), and building muscle mass. Now consider that muscle is 20% denser than fat. So if you lost 5 lbs. of fat and gained 5 lbs. of muscle though you’d weigh the same, you would look smaller and all with no jiggle.
A pound of muscle burns about 50 calories a day in metabolism, though it doesn’t sound like much, add 2 pounds of it and that muscle would burn off 10 pounds of fat in a year. Not too shabby now is it? Best of all maintain that muscle and that newly svelte body you got from that great diet and cardio work will be much easier to maintain…at last no yo-yoing.
Resistance exercise should be performed 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes per session.
Cheers!
Stop Reducing - Fact or Fiction
If losing unwanted body fat feels like a drink from the fountain of youth, then spot reducing would have to be the Holy Grail. Let’s be honest, we all have that one (okay) two spots we’d like to lose while the rest is pretty much okay. Billions of dollars have been spent on such remedies as: gels, wraps, abdominal blasters, pills, potions, etc. only to find that they don’t work. Still, some people think, if it’s on T.V. it must be real, there goes more $$$.
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I often have new clients ask me what the correct heart rate training zone should be for fat loss. I have recently read message boards and forums with claims that to lose fat you should stay in the 120-135 bpm zone. The rational comes from the fact that under low level activity our physiology uses much higher percentages of fat as a fuel source.
