Previous Posts you should read for background to this one;
- Losing weight is simple…but not easy!
- Eat this!
- The race does not always go to the swift…but to those that keep on running!
He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire. - Lao-tzu
Ok, so far we have talked about watching what we shove in our piehole and we have talked about the advantages of aerobic training. In this article, I will discuss a fundamental principle that is imperative in losing weight or more specifically “body fat” loss. I think that the fundamentals of weight loss have been drowned in an enormous mass of information or, I might say, misinformation. Most of it is great and can definitely help but there is a major misconception about weight training and it’s “weight gaining” effects.
I’ve led you to believe that aerobic exercise is necessary for weight loss. Common prescription for weight loss is walking, running or other cardio type exercises as we discussed in the previous post. “You run to lose weight” is the common thinking. Back in the 70’s and 80’s aerobics was all that was discussed when it came to losing weight. While this may work in some cases, research has shown that aerobic exercise alone is not sufficient for weight loss.
Wanna know why?
Because although you burn calories when training aerobically, you only burn a relatively small amount. For example in a 30 min jogging session you may burn around 200-300 calories depending on your body weight (especially muscle), age and other things. What you’ve just burned is the equivalent of a large apple and banana. But that’s comparing it to fruits. Considering a Big Mac is around 500 Calories and a Hungry Jacks Vege Burger Supreme coming in at more than 600 Calories you can see how that’s a relatively small amount. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying that aerobic exercise has no value. I’m a disciple for it. I love it. Aerobic exercise has been shown in numerous scientific studies to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, prevent the onset of diabetes, prevent some cancers and many other health benefits. But aerobic exercise alone is not the most effective way to lose bodyfat or “lose weight.” Science again has proven this.
This may be not only because of the relatively small amounts of calories burned but also due to the potential loss of muscle mass. Aerobic exercise, especially long and strenuous exercise may increase your chances of burning muscle. This muscle burning effect is further enhanced when coupling aerobic exercise with a reduced calorie diet like we have already talked about in the last two posts. As we lose weight we definately want to avoid doing so at the cost of losing muscle! Actually, let me go out on a limb here….I don’t believe any of us would care at all what we weighed if we looked great, our clothes fit perfect and we felt wonderful. Am I right? I would much rather weigh 180 and be slim and trim and strong than weigh 170 and have it all fat around my waist and look and feel terrible. Don’t get too trapped into living and dying with the scale. Of much more importance are the inches of fat we lose and the pounds of muscle we gain. In the end that is what is going to determine how we look and feel.
When aerobic exercise is performed your body burns both carbohydrate and fat. But when you increase the aerobic/cardio intensity your body also switches to burning more carbohydrates and less bodyfat proportionately. If not enough carbohydrates are consumed your body will switch to making carbohydrates from protein. That is called catabolism and results in losing muscle mass, which is the exact opposite of what you should be aiming for. This is particularly important as we get older and we are losing muscle mass to Father Time as well. Therefore, if you are already on a low calorie diet and you add aerobic exercise, you will further accelerate this catastrophe. That’s why there has to be three parts to this puzzle.
But wait, you say, wouldn’t that lead to more weight loss and thus quicker and faster results?
Well, as I just mentioned, this may look good from a bathroom scale perspective but I assure you that it is detrimental to your ability to achieve permanent weight loss. That’s because if you lose muscle, you lose your ability to burn calories. With less muscle, you burn less calories. It’s that simple. People trying to lose weight should stop and think about that last statement.
And what happens when you now burn fewer calories?
You need to eat less to compensate. This means that you are now more susceptible to gaining back your bodyfat and more as soon as you return to your regular eating habits. Oh yeah, and it doesn’t do anything in helping you control appetite and in developing healthy eating habits either.
Why don’t I just eat extra protein to compensate?
Eating extra protein will not counteract this destruction because total dietary energy must be first increased to meet the body’s energy needs. Fat, be it dietary or bodyfat, will not stop this muscle wasting because some tissues such as the brain need energy as glucose. While amino acids, which come from muscle protein can be metabolised to produce glucose, fats cannot. As a consequence, a person with more than adequate fat stores may suffer loss of muscle and other tissue if the diet is too restricted in calories.
Here is the bottom line. The primary exercise prescription for those wanting permanent weight loss must be weight training or resistance training or strength training in addition to your diet and aerobics.
I know there are some out there, particularly women, who seem to think that their muscles grow like weeds and are afraid of becoming too big or masculine. We men usually can’t get enough muscles and many unfortunately turn to steroids. I can assure you that it’s not easy to gain lean muscle. Losing bodyfat is the easy bit. Gaining muscle is the hard part.
Women who weight train will never look like the professional lady bodybuilders who need to take supplements to compensate for the fact that women just don’t have the right hormones to build big muscles. Namely, testosterone. Testosterone is a predominantly male hormone and is not plentiful in women. In fact males have around 18 times the testosterone of women. Without it, your body has a hard time building lean muscle mass. With all this talk of muscle you may be wondering what advantage will having more muscle give me other than being stronger? Lets face it, how often is a lady required to lift a 150 lb. object?
Apart from increasing strength, preventing osteoporosis (which two in three women will develop and 3 out of four guys) and other health related benefits which even go so far as to conditioning the heart and the respiratory system, building muscle is an essential part in controlling bodyfat. Yes, if you want to lose bodyfat and more specifically keep it off forever, you need to perform muscle building exercises such as weight or resistance training. Carve that in your forehead so you don’t forget it.
Gaining muscle allows your body to burn more calories, so that less excess calories remain to be stored, usually as bodyfat. Muscle is a vital component in your body’s furnace. Basically the more muscle you have, the more furnaces you have operating in burning energy or food. Check this out….one pound of muscle burns about 50 calories a day no matter what you are doing. One pound of fat burns nothing. So, if you gain just 5 pounds of muscle that means you will burn an extra 250 calories per day. In one year that translates to a fat loss of about 26 pounds! (one pound equals 3,500 calories) This inevitably allows you to control bodyfat by allowing you to eat more and still stay lean. Yes, you’ll be able to eat more, stay lean and feeling great.
That’s the reason 220 lb bodybuilders can eat two chickens, one kilo of rice, twenty egg whites and seven rolls plus 2 protein shakes and that’s just his desert, yet they’re still leaner that you and me. Clearly, muscle mass is proportional to metabolic rate. The more active muscle you have the more calories you burn throughout the day.
We’ve all heard of metabolism and metabolic rate. This is the energy expenditure that the body undergoes continuously, even at rest. This energy is burned in order to keep your body functioning normally. With that usually comes the misguided thinking that some of us were just born with a slow metabolism. When you increase muscle mass you increase metabolism. Since most of our day is spent at rest, on the couch or at a desk, by simply having more muscle you burn more calories compared to your less muscular self. More muscle, more calories burned. It’s as simple as that.
Conversely, this also means that those with a high bodyfat level, have a lower metabolic rate and therefore burn less calories. They burn less calories while driving, sitting, walking, or whatever the activity. They burn less calories when compared to an identical individual, at the same weight but with lower bodyfat.
So as you can see it’s a win-win proposition. GET MORE MUSCLE!!!
MORE MUSCLE = INCREASE METABOLISM = MORE CALORIES BURNED = INCREASE FOOD INTAKE = LESS BODYFAT
The metabolic rate increases as you achieve maturity but it’s downhill from then as I can attest at age 61. In fact by the age of 65, some 25% of our mature muscle mass will be lost and a great contributor to this is inactivity. Thus if you reduce muscle, you reduce metabolic rate and we all know what happens next. Calorie accrual, leading to higher bodyfat levels and overall weight increases!
So, stop laying the blame squarely at your slow metabolism or your body type, and shift your focus to what can be done about it. The answer doesn’t lie in a 30 min cardio session or in severely reducing calories (also known as the billion dollar industry of dieting). You still need to eat smart and do your aerobic but stop looking to burn calories or severely reducing them as the only two courses of action. Instead augment them and help yourself in building a better body that allows you to eat more and stay lean, thus supporting your eating habits. Building muscle is perhaps the most fundamental component in staying lean.
Focus on your large muscle groups cause that is where you will see the greatest results. Your legs, butt, back, shoulders and arms are the easiest to pack additional muscle on so make sure you hit them at least 3 times a week. I tend to work out 6 days a week doing the bottom half one day and the upper half the next. You can combine it all into one workout starting out and only hit the weights 3 times a week.
Start out with just one set with a weight that you can easily perform 8 repetitions. The last repetition should be tough. Go through all your sets for each body part and have fun with it. You gradually increase your weight as your strength increases. I am not going to spend anytime teaching you all the different ways there are to weight train. There are enough other sites on line that can do a better job than I can. I just hope I have maybe lit a little fire in you to make the decision to take back control of your body and realize that a big part of that equation is weight training.
And if that isn’t enough….For you men, People magazine just published the list of the 10 body parts that women find most attractive in men. The first 3 were:
- Abdominals
- Butt
- Shoulders/Chest
Try getting those WITHOUT weight training!
P.S. I found a great article that kind of sums up everything for those of you that want the great abs. Click here
PSS. I need your help!! What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it? I will cherish your comments and/or advice. Let me know. Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me! Rick
