Weight Lifting for Weight Loss, Fitness and Health47 lbs LOSTso farOctober 22, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 34 comments
Editor’s note: This is a guest article from Zane. He runs a website called Best Diet Pills that provides consumers with no b.s. reviews of diets and diet pills.
Weight Lifting for Weight Loss, Fitness and Health
In addition to cardiovascular exercise activities, research reveals that weight lifting will also provide individuals with added weight loss and health benefits. According to research, weight lifting exercises not only boost the body’s muscle tone and strength, but they are also shown to increase the body’s metabolism, fat burning abilities, and energy levels.
Benefits of Weight Lifting
Metabolism
One of the key benefits of weight lifting comes from the fact that weight lifting increases the body’s metabolism. The metabolism is essentially the body’s ability to burn calories; therefore, the faster your metabolism is, the faster you can burn food and ultimately avoid weight gain. Essentially, your metabolism is boosted when lifting weights since the increased muscle fibers burn off calories more efficiently and effectively. Therefore, by lifting weights regularly, individuals are able to teach their bodies and metabolisms to process food more efficiently.
Lean Muscle Tissue
Weight lifting provides benefits for both men and women, although the body’s ability to increase muscle mass varies between the two sexes. Essentially, women’s weight lifting activities will increase the body’s appearance of tone, while also boosting the body’s strength and abilities. On the other hand, men’s weight lifting activities will actually increase the size of various muscle groups; therefore, both men and women benefit, yet only men are able to significantly bulk up from weight lifting activities. Also, lean muscle tissue is where the bulk of calories are burned when being processed, so individuals who begin a weight lifting regimen early on in life often lose about ½ to ¾ of a pound more than non-weight lifters each year.
Improved Aging Abilities
As humans age, the body naturally slows down, as the metabolic rate also slows its processes. As a result, it is common and normal for humans to gain relatively small amounts of weight each year as they gain. By lifting weights, however, dieters are able to prevent this weight gain, as the muscle tissues and fibers promote weight loss at every age throughout one’s lifetime.
Why Dieting Alone May Not Work
- By dieting alone, without exercise, the body begins to burn muscle stores; therefore, while individuals may experience weight loss, nearly 25% of the amount lost may come from muscle tissue and fibers.
- Exercise and weight lifting boost metabolic levels; therefore, dieting alone can actually hinder the body’s ability to efficiently and effectively burn fat and calories from one’s diet.
- Even cardiovascular activities have been shown to not completely boost one’s metabolic rate. Traditionally, cardio exercises include activities such as running, jogging, walking, etc. These activities are effective calorie-burning exercises, but only increased muscle can effectively boost one’s metabolic rate.
How to Begin Weight Lifting
Individuals interested in weight lifting can take advantage of various fitness opportunities, such as:
- Attending weight lifting / muscle building group fitness courses.
- Joining a gym with various weight equipment machines to help provide support and guidance.
- Hiring a personal trainer who can guide an individual through specific and effective exercises.
Add weight lifting to your workouts today, if you haven’t already!
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I haven’t tried weight lifting yet but I might try it sometime and see if it would work for me. Thanks for this.
Ah, yes. For those who advocate ‘cardio’ for weight loss, they should try muscular endurance exercising. Some call it ‘circuit training’.
It’s vastly superior and the results speak for themselves.
I think weight-lifting, weight-training should be included in everyone’s lifestyle in some way, shape, or form.
Their are nothing BUT benefits.
Good post, and I have to agree with Strong One, Circuits are great at building muscular endurance and burning calories in a time efficient way; however, don’t think that you have to use externally loaded weights to build muscle or burn fat. You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance . . .
Yeah, I agree. Weight lifting is actually good methods for weight loss.
Women can bulk up too! Testosterone is present in both sexes and women’s muscles will respond to heavy weight training by getting larger. Now, with proper training one can enhance tone and tsrength without too much bulk, but it is a fallacy to say that women’s muscles necessarily won’t get larger with weight training.
I had a professor who is in the US strength/conditioning coaches hall of fame and he always said the first thing he would do with people that wanted to lose weight (fat) was start them on a strength training program.
strength training is great for everyone!
Weight lifting has helped my uncle not only to lose weight but also to build a fit body. But it takes long time and hardwork.
Weight training is also a better choice than cardio to increase your metabolism through an increased EPOC
EPOC or Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption is essentially a measurement of how quickly or slowly your metabolism (BMR) returns back to normal after exercising.
Where cardio increases your short term metabolism - for the duration of your cardio session , and added muscle mass increases your long term metabolism, increasing your EPOC through resistance training is a way to increase your metabolism for up to 36 hours.
36 hours
For more info, google EPOC, visit my blog or t-nation
Great article. Strength training, whether with weights or just body weight, is a big part of my workout. It helps me build the muscles that I need to do my cardio exercises.
And for all the girls out there, ditch the dinky 3lb weights. Strength training will not make you bulk up.
Good info brother. Have to reduce my weight. Let me check whether it helps me effectively
I’m not overweight but I am interested in staying healthy. You make a good point about weight lifting, however I think that it can be supplemented by playing sports instead assuming you’re not fond of it.
Hi Israel, I am with you 100% on this one! I don’t seem to get any results with cardio alone. But with strength training and intervals it’s a powerhouse of fat loss!
Keep going!
Take care,
Andrew
Resistance training is crucial for muscle and bones.
Yeah I concur and for me,weight lifting is a lot more fun than doing cardio alone.
Yep, especially fighting through those heavy lifts.
After reading this, I will surely try weight lifting too. I hope this will not be too hard. I really need all the exercise I can get.
Good post, and I have to agree with Strong One, Circuits are great at building muscular endurance and burning calories in a time efficient way; however, don’t think that you have to use externally loaded weights to build muscle or burn fat. You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance . .
Resistance is the key!
Definitely cardio and weight lifting are a great combination. It has helped me lose weight faster. It really works.
I don’t think weight lifting help that much for loosing weight.
Great article. Strength training, whether with weights or just body weight, is a big part of my workout. It helps me build the muscles that I need to do my cardio exercises.
And for all the girls out there, ditch the dinky 3lb weights. Strength training will not make you bulk up.
I agree. While your diet will be the factor in the amount of weight you lose, your workout level will determine how much of that is fat and how much is muscle. Plus, by building muscle you will inevitably lose more fat in the process!
Thanks for the post!
All the Best,
Andrew R
Go Healthy Go Fit
Well its not lots of training nor no food that will make you healthy. A mixture of both will do the trick (At least what it has done to me) You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance and a good source of protein.
Be honest with yourself. Do not try to be superhuman. You will fail if you “change everything.” All I ask is that you realize that you are human and have limits to the severity of what you can do and sustain
this is great topic. I have seen many blogs on weight loss. It helps not only in reducing but also maintaing the weight. Thanks.
I have no lost a total of about 55-60 pounds in 1.5-2years since my last physical. My highest peak was at 208 or 210 and I had high cholesterol and an inflamed liver. Now that I’m down to about 150 (5′9″ tall), I’m trying to gain some weight back because I was told I’m too skinny.
It’s actually pretty darn hard to gain weight compared to losing it :(. I know weight lifting and exercising is for the health, but I’ve just been sitting in front of the computer for the whole year or more, but just slowed down on snacking and eating less rice. It really works.
-Mike
Congrats on the weight loss.
weight lifting is a great way to gain increased lung capacity and cardio workout, but its also very important to have the correct posture whilst lifting weights.
Oh for sure. I always use as perfect a form as I can. I usually succeed in maintaining a strict form.
More muscle more fat loss simple, muscle burns 4 x times more calories than fat, keep pumping…….
i really dont think weight lifiting can make you lise
weight, its only muscle mass getting bigger.
More muscle, means for calories being burnt…
Lifting weight will increase ur protein need which will make u harder to get fat and bust ur metabolism … Ur totally right