Weight Training
It's often thought that to lose weight, you need to incorporate a cardio program rather than a weight training system. Weights are often associated with building muscles and looking beefy. This is a false perception that can hurt your ability to burn fat in the most effective manner. While losing weight for the long term will require an improved diet and balanced exercise program, weight lifting will improve your weight loss potential and create a leaner physical appearance.
Basic Effects of Weight Lifting on the Body
Each movement that the body makes requires energy. In the absence of food to burn, your body attacks the fat cells for energy. Your body will reduce fat cells when it converts the fat inside of cells and converts it into energy.
This is a scenario that is occurring in the body 24 hours a day. While certain periods of the day have fewer energy requirements, such as sleeping, energy is still required. The major factor in play while this is occurring is where this energy fuel is derived from. It can be food or it can be fat cells. Weight lifting provides a need for extensive energy to be utilized even while you are at rest, which creates a greater impetus for the body to burn fat cells.
Increase Metabolism
One of the major impacts that weight lifting has on the body is that it will boost your body's metabolic rate. This is great for weight loss in both the long term and short term. During the hours immediately after a strength building program, your body experiences an increased metabolic rate. A consistent weight training program allows your body to increase and maintain a higher amount of lean muscle, which creates a more permanent metabolism boost.
While cardio also improves metabolism, it is only in the short term for about two to three hours following the workout. This subtracts from the much higher calorie burning scenario that takes place from a strength training session. One negative side effect of too much cardio activity is that you can actually lower your lean muscle mass which can reduce metabolism over a longer period of time. This can become counterproductive to losing weight.
Body Composition
Another large beneficial impact of weight training is that it will change your body composition. Cardio can be a beneficial factor for weight loss, but weight lifting generates a loss in body fat. An example of this is that many people that exercise on a treadmill will lose some weight, but their body looks the same. The reason is that you have not altered the ratio of body fat to muscle mass. You just weigh less and appear to be smaller. Strength training can actually change your physical appearance. This is because you will be replacing body fat with increased muscle. This generates a more toned and lean body composition. Lifting weights provides you with a visual body change as opposed to just a scale change.
Tags: your body, weight loss, weight training, body composition, change your, lean muscle