One of the best ways to kick-start weight loss is to build muscle through strength training.
Why?
Because by adding muscle to your body, you’re increasing your metabolic rate. You will naturally burn more calories throughout the day. (Muscle tissue “eats up” calories, even at rest.)
If you are trying to lose weight, a diet alone is a big mistake. As you cut back your food intake without exercising, your body will burn both fat and muscle, thereby lowering your metabolic rate. As your metabolism drops, you will burn fewer calories each day, and it will become increasingly harder to lose weight.
A diet plus cardiovascular exercise is better than a diet alone. But the best “recipe” for weight loss–the one with the highest success rate–will include strength training of some kind. Because the more muscle you build, the more calories you’ll burn.
An article by Jane Brody and published in The Rocky Mountain News says this:
With greater muscle mass, your basic metabolic rate will rise and you will burn more calories all day and night. And since muscle holds water and takes up less room than the equivalent weight of fat, by shedding fat and gaining muscle you can lose inches and sizes without losing actual pounds.
As Brody suggests, don’t be surprised if your weight stays the same or even goes up a little bit right after you begin strength training. This is simply muscle replacing fat.
Take my wife, for instance. She is 5’5″. During times when we’ve not exercised consistently, her weight has dropped as low as 116 lbs. But when she is in her best condition, her weight hovers around 120-122 lbs. This is because of increased muscle mass.
Oh, and one more thing: strength training is also excellent for improving sleep. The nights I sleep deepest are when I’ve done some good weight lifting and made my muscles work. Skip the expensive sleep pills… start strength training!
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A good article, it’s also important to boost muscle mass with good nutrition. Good sources of protein and some supplements with a good exercise regime should to the trick!
I definately agree with the opening line “One of the best ways to kick-start weight loss is to build muscle through strength training.” The simple equation for weight loss is: Energy expenditure (EE) > Energy intake (EI) therefore when EI > EE people will pile on the pounds. A healthy diet coupled with weight training and cardio workouts is undoubtedly a recipe for success.
When it comes to strength training being a sleep aid i would have to point out that strength training as with any form of exercise releases stress hormones into the blood stream and will therefore take you to a higher state of alertness and some people may find it more difficult to sleep.
Finally, we are all very different in terms of make-up and what does or doesn’t work for us. If you are new to weight loss then be prepared to try out a few different methods and employ a stategy that works best for you.
Yes, weight training has been proved to aid weight loss. Pumping iron is one way of weight training, but circuit training and using your body weight can also be very effective. There are many exercises that can be done without weights, such as press ups, dips, squats, burpies, squat thrusts, step ups – which all will build muscles too. Adding exercises from Pilates or yoga can also add beneficial variation to your training program. Obviously the muscle types developed will be different, but for someone that has done no exercise previously then circuit training can be a great way to ease themselves into the more rigourous demands of weight training.
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