The nation has a growing obesity trend. The national median for weight and body fat have increased steadily over the last few decades. This is not only a problem in the United States, but is found in most developed countries. This staggering growth has millions of people looking for any and all methods for burning fat.
Billions of dollars a year are spent on obesity related diseases. Billions more are spent on prescriptions and supplements to aid in fat loss. There are too many diets to count and each has its merits but diets are only a band-aid for the problem. We’ll revisit this idea later. Exercise is an important component of any fat loss program.
In order to lose body fat you must burn more calories than you take in. A combination of a calorie restricting diet and exercise can help to accomplish this. The body burns a set amount of calories to maintain its normal functioning. Exercise helps the body burn extra calories through the metabolic processes of converting glucose to energy. Different types of exercise burn
calories at different rates and for decades low intensity endurance activities have been recommended for fat burning. While it is true that these exercises are good calorie burners and can be a great addition to an overall fat loss plan, it is also paramount that weight training plays a pivotal role as well.
As stated earlier diet alone cannot ensure fat loss success. It does help to lower total caloric intake and research has shown that altering nutrient intake can change the metabolic process as well leading to more fat loss. But, even though lowering caloric intake will help to lose body fat it will not solve the problem for the long run because when the calorie count goes back up the
fat will return. Aerobic exercise will burn more calories also leading to fat loss but if a person returns to a sedentary level the fat will return. Adding weight training to a fat loss program will not only increase calorie burning but will also increase lean muscle mass which will increase resting metabolic rate translating to more calories burned even at rest.
Many people who want to lose fat shy away from weights in favor of aerobic training. This ends up being a detriment to their fat loss goals. The extra fat burning benefits of weight training can not be ignored. The addition of just one pound of muscle will increase your resting metabolic rate as much as 100 calories per day. That is an extra 700 calories per week. Stretching that out over a year equals an additional 36,400 calories a year, or 10.4 pounds,
which equals a net loss of nine pounds. All of that from just an addition of one pound of muscle. The average person can expect to gain three pounds of muscle in a month of weight training. This will not be a steady gain and after a gain of six to eight pounds the rate will slow to around one pound or less. The myth that weight training will make a person muscle bound is simply not
true. Bodybuilders eat tons of food and take many supplements, and drugs, to reach the size we see.
Weight training should be a part of any comprehensive fat loss program. The increase in lean muscle will turn the body into a fat burning oven. Small increases in lean tissue translate into large amounts of fat loss over the long run. The most important benefit is the long term result of keeping the fat off. Maintaining the new lean muscles mass will ensure that the fat stays off.
