By Jeff Hauswirth
Weight lifting and resistance exercise have many awesome health benefits, but losing weight? In a word, yes. Most people think that by lifting weights, “bigger muscles equals a bigger scale reading”. Not true. Think about it like this. If all you do is cardio, you will lose weight fat, but your shape will basically stay the same. Imagine a pear. If all the pear did was cardio exercise, it would basically become a smaller size pear. To change your actual shape, you need weight lifting.
I am not at all knocking cardio activities, as they are just as necessary as weight training for total health. What I am saying is that weight training is also a great way to lose weight. More so than cardio, adding weight training to your routine will help you burn calories 24 hours a day. I have mentioned before, and will mention again, that for every pound of lean muscle you add to your body, you will burn about 70 extra calories per day. Even when you sleep! Even when you are watching TV! Cardio, on the other hand, will boost your metabolism, but only temporarily after a workout (up to 3 hours after, depending on the intensity of the workout).
One of the first thoughts that some people have when they start weight training is that “the number on the scale isn’t dropping as fast”. This can, if you don’t look at the whole situation, cause a person to give up weigh training, because “lifting might make me fat”. Cardio does burn fat, but doesn’t really tone or build muscle. When you are lifting weights, you are not only adding adding muscle, but also burning fat. Muscle being 3x’s more dense than fat, it may seem as though you aren’t losing as much, but what’s happening is that you are actually replacing that fat loss with lean muscle, changing your shape, and boosting your metabolism. Although the number may not drop as fast, you will notice that your clothes are much looser. All this from simply adding some weight training to your world! Try it for yourself. If all you have done to maintain or help to lose weight is cardio, add some resistance exercise to your routine, and see how much better you feel, and how much easier it is to maintain a healthy weight.
– Contributed by guest author, Jeff Hauswirth