Diet & Weight Loss 4 Reasons Why You Should Lift Weights
In starting many different weight loss programs
, many people believe that just plain cardio and loads of running is enough to lose the weight. It may seem so for the first few pounds you shed off, but theres many reasons as to why it is beneficial for you to start lifting weights.
1. Compound Interest in Metabolic Rate
When you do long endurance runs of cardio, it usually takes roughly 30 minutes of your time before your body has depleted all existing usable energy and starts to target fats instead. In doing so, one thing to note on long cardio runs is that it only burns calories during the duration of the workout itself. Since you are not pushing your muscles as much as you would in resistance training, your body does not need as much time to recover itself as compared to lifting weights. Therefore, most calories burned are only from the duration of the exercise, not in prolonged periods.
Generally, when you lift weights, you exercise your muscles to a point where the muscle fibers wear out. In doing so, muscle synthesis takes place in order to recover and heal the injured muscles. During the recovery process, which usually takes place within 48 hours, your body consistently needs more energy to recover. This is known as the passive calorie burning even with just 20 minutes of weight training. Your body in the next 48 hours will have an increase in metabolic rate as it needs more nutrients to recover from muscle breakdown.
2. Muscle Depletion and Metabolism
There is a reason why marathon runners seem to appear lean and thin as compared to people who are all-rounders when it comes to training. Most people who do not lift weights do not develop and build muscles as much as people who do. This generally results in muscle tissue loss. In a recent study, it was found that as compared to people who lift weights as to those who did not, the people who did lost 44% more fat.
Those who did not lift weights generally lost most of their weight from water weight and muscle tissue loss. When you do that, your resting metabolic rate (RMR) decreases. One thing to understand about muscle is that it is an active tissue as compared to fat. Therefore, you do not want to lose muscle as it helps you to burn calories even while you are resting.
3. It Aids in Fat Loss
In order to increase your resting metabolism rate (RMR), you would need to increase the amount of muscle you have in your body. In order to do so, you will have to subject your muscles to breakdown for it to recover and become stronger. As it grows, your RMR increases which leads to better fat loss. One thing to understand is that when losing weight, there is a difference in losing water weight and fats. Water weight is temporary as water is used to keep the body system functioning. In order to lose fats effectively, plenty of water should be consumed.
As for fat loss, it is generally more permanent as long as you have your diet in check. One thing to note about fats is that the amount of fat cells in your body remains the same no matter how much fats you take into your body. How a person stores more fat through fat cells is through the size of the fat cells. Not the amount of fat cells one has.
As your RMR increases, energy will be taken from your fat stores, therefore, decreasing the size of your fat cells to give you a leaner toned look.
4. Fats versus Muscle
You may have heard it many times, where muscle is heavier than fats. Although this may be true on many accounts, one thing you should know is that muscle is an active tissue. This means that in order to sustain the tissue, energy is required to maintain itself. As compared to fats, fats are generally inactive tissue and treated more towards energy reserves in your body. Little energy is required to keep the fats in your body. A pound of muscle burns about 10-20 calories a day while a pound of fat only burns 5 calories a day.
One thing to also note is that muscle although heavier than fats, is more compound, packed and takes up less space. This means that 1 pound of muscle as compared to 1 pounds of fat, is leaner and more toned.
Summary
Having said this, in order to maintain muscle mass and to have maximum fat loss, you should be putting in time and investments in weight training. It is beneficial as it helps you maintain and grow the muscles which will aid in fat loss, increase your RMR, makes your body leaner and more toned. Without exercising of muscles, your muscles degenerate especially if you go for long distance endurance trainings which will decrease muscle tissue in the long run.
In order to receive maximum results in terms of weight lifting, I highly recommend that you educate yourself in the field of resistance training programs. You must also remember that in order for weight training to be effective, proper execution will lead to beneficial results. If you are going to do it, do it with proper understanding and education. Apply this and the results will follow.
Towards Your Success,
Aaron Leow
www.aaronleow.com
by: Aaron Leow
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