Muscle Building For Weight Loss
At any given moment at every fitness facility in America you will find the ratio of cardio machine to weight equipment users to be enormously in favor of cardio equipment.
If I asked every person doing cardio are you doing it for 'cardiovascular improvement' what percent would say yes?My very educated and experienced guess would be almost none.
Virtually everyone's MAIN reason is for weight loss, with the 'healthy heart' aspect a very distant second.
These people couldn't BE more misguided in their efforts.
Now before I explain, let me address those of you that are going to say 'but I know someone who started walking/running and lost X lbs' or something to that effect.
Two points.
First they started walking/running, which means that they were sedentary before more than likely.
If you do NOTHING and then add ANY physical activity to your life and all else stays they same, you will lose weight.
Your calorie burn rate would increase.
They could have started gardening instead of running and would've lost weight, assuming they had been a couch potato previously.
Secondly weight loss through cardio is less likely to be permanent and it isn't the most efficient way to drop pounds.
Unless they change something else they will have to maintain the walking/running at the same level forever or the weight would come back on.
The benefits of weight training to longevity and quality of life are irrefutable.
There is loads of scientific study to back this up.
The benefits to 'weight loss' aren't as publicized because it's a different KIND of weight loss.
When you step on the scales after a month of weight training you may NOT weigh less.
But your body composition will have changed as you loss fat and gain muscle.
Muscle does in fact weigh more than fat (it's more dense), so a pound of muscle takes up less space on your body than a pound of fat.
So you weigh the same but LOOK smaller.
But here is the REAL benefit.
If you add 3 lbs of muscle to your body, you will burn as many calories just sitting there as you would've running a mile every day.
Think about that.
You can run a mile every day for the rest of your life to lose some weight or add 3 lbs of muscle and with the same calorie intake as before, and your body burns that same miles worth of work just 'being'.
Oh and by the way, you burn more calories in a one hour weight session than you do running for an hour (unless you run instead of jog/walk).
So after the 3 lbs have been added you look smaller, stronger and better, with less fat than before.
Who cares what the scales say? What do you think happens when you gain 10 lbs of muscle?
If I asked every person doing cardio are you doing it for 'cardiovascular improvement' what percent would say yes?My very educated and experienced guess would be almost none.
Virtually everyone's MAIN reason is for weight loss, with the 'healthy heart' aspect a very distant second.
These people couldn't BE more misguided in their efforts.
Now before I explain, let me address those of you that are going to say 'but I know someone who started walking/running and lost X lbs' or something to that effect.
Two points.
First they started walking/running, which means that they were sedentary before more than likely.
If you do NOTHING and then add ANY physical activity to your life and all else stays they same, you will lose weight.
Your calorie burn rate would increase.
They could have started gardening instead of running and would've lost weight, assuming they had been a couch potato previously.
Secondly weight loss through cardio is less likely to be permanent and it isn't the most efficient way to drop pounds.
Unless they change something else they will have to maintain the walking/running at the same level forever or the weight would come back on.
The benefits of weight training to longevity and quality of life are irrefutable.
There is loads of scientific study to back this up.
The benefits to 'weight loss' aren't as publicized because it's a different KIND of weight loss.
When you step on the scales after a month of weight training you may NOT weigh less.
But your body composition will have changed as you loss fat and gain muscle.
Muscle does in fact weigh more than fat (it's more dense), so a pound of muscle takes up less space on your body than a pound of fat.
So you weigh the same but LOOK smaller.
But here is the REAL benefit.
If you add 3 lbs of muscle to your body, you will burn as many calories just sitting there as you would've running a mile every day.
Think about that.
You can run a mile every day for the rest of your life to lose some weight or add 3 lbs of muscle and with the same calorie intake as before, and your body burns that same miles worth of work just 'being'.
Oh and by the way, you burn more calories in a one hour weight session than you do running for an hour (unless you run instead of jog/walk).
So after the 3 lbs have been added you look smaller, stronger and better, with less fat than before.
Who cares what the scales say? What do you think happens when you gain 10 lbs of muscle?
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