Weight lifting for weight loss is becoming very popular in the fitness world, and has been highly recognized in the science world as well, but a lot of people still don’t know how powerful it can be for both men and women to lose weight.
If you like to lift and also want to lose weight, then you are in luck because these two things go hand in hand perfectly. To get the healthiest and fastest results you’ll need to make sure that you are both eating healthy and exercising, so don’t toss your diet out the window just because lifting weights is a powerful method on its own.
So many people still hold the image of long periods of cardio as being the ultimate fat burning exercise… and not only are such difficult workouts not necessary, they aren’t even the most effective for weight loss.
When you incorporate “resistance” into your workout, meaning that your workout is difficult or intense enough to give your muscles a good workout, you add a number of powerful benefits into your routine that will help you reach your weight loss goals faster, and result in you having a better shaped and healthier body all around.
When I started my weight loss journey at 245 pounds, I had discovered online that weight lifting was incredible for fat loss, and so I was thrilled to have another option for exercise opened up to me that I enjoyed and that would help me lose weight.
Lifting weights is a huge part of my routine that both helped me lose 80 pounds and continues to help me get leaner and stronger.
Research has proven in many different studies, that resistance training is just as or more effective than aerobic exercise for fat loss in overweight individuals.
(Resistance training research: “Evidence for Resistance Training as a Treatment Therapy in Obesity”)
(Diet, exercise, resistance training, and aerobic exercise research: “Diet, exercise or diet with exercise…”)
The initial burn during your workout
The first wave of rewards that lifting weights will bring, are the calories that you burn during your workout. Resistance training quickly burns energy… using the stored energy in your muscles as well as increasing your heart rate at the same time.
Your muscles store lots of energy, and using it up greatly increases your daily energy expenditure, even without the extended benefits of breaking down muscle and building it back up, which we’ll get to in just a minute.
Bodyweight exercises are also a good resistance exercise, but lifting actual weights allows you to 1) easily work your muscles to exhaustion, and 2) adjust the resistance.
You can add weight to focus more on your muscles and get a really good resistance workout without needing to exhaust your whole body, or you can lower the weight to get a balance of muscle and cardio while you do more reps. Both are great methods so long as your muscles get a good workout.
In my workout routine I prefer to focus on heavier sets, but I also balance things out with frequent, high intensity workouts with lower weight… and I also do cardio by itself on occasion, to keep my body well balanced.
That being said, weight lifting is and always has been my “secret weapon” for weight loss.
But this initial fat loss is just the beginning of the results that you will see from lifting weights.
Burn fat after your workout
What’s really exciting about working your muscles, is that you can induce an after-burn effect… where you actually increase your resting metabolism for an extended period of time (up to 48 hours).
(After-burn research: “Intensity of Resistance Exercise Determines Adipokine and Resting Energy Expenditure Responses”)
This same after-burn can be induced through cardio alone, but it requires your heart and breathing rate to be significantly elevated for so long, that almost anyone who needs to lose weight wouldn’t be able to handle it.
This extended metabolism boost can greatly increase your daily energy expenditure (burn more calories), as well as more efficiently channel any excess consumed energy into muscles, rather than fat.
Beyond the prolonged, raised metabolism effects… muscle naturally burns calories by just being on your body. The more you have, the more energy your body burns all day long, making it easier to burn fat and not overeat.
So, while lifting weights you burn lots of calories during your workout, especially if you get a good cardio workout at the same time… and you also burn calories afterwards.
Maintaining and gaining muscle
Fat loss is just one side of the coin when it comes to the benefits of weight lifting.
With losing lots of weight it’s normal to lose a bit of muscle as you get thinner… but if you work your muscles often you can prevent this and keep most of your muscle mass, which will make a world of difference in the way you are shaped when you reach your goal weight.
Muscle shapes your body, fills out your figure, and improves your fat to muscle ratio… meaning that having more of it makes you leaner just like losing fat does.
It’s common for women to be a little stand-offish with weights for fear of becoming bulky, but it’s not something women need to worry about, so feel free to lift away!
Without muscle, you just kind of get smaller and smaller without ever reaching your goal of being lean. Having muscle is a big part of achieving your ideal body, for both men and women, not just for the fat burning benefits, but also because of how it shapes your body and helps you get lean faster by factoring into your fat to muscle ratio.
Weight training combined with cardio
An ideal exercise routine will incorporate cardio along with resistance training to give the best results.
Although you should experience the benefits of working with higher weight often… it’s really easy to lower the weight and raise the reps to get your cardio along with your muscle work at the same time.
With a well-balanced amount of weight, not so heavy that you’re going slow but not so light that you can’t work your muscles… at this weight you can do an intense workout, which will give you amazing results for a very short amount of time.
Intense workouts are good for cardio or muscle, but with both combined you get the best of both worlds.
Intense workouts also work well with bodyweight exercises, as these usually take more reps to get a good burn when compared to weights, but when you go faster and harder the resistance increases and gives your muscles a good burn.
Weight lifting is perfect if you are obese
Resistance training is great for anyone’s weight loss journey, but especially good for obese people who want to lose weight. But the bigger you are, the better of an option weight lifting is, because it doesn’t require you to carry around your bodyweight.
If walking or standing for extended period hurts you, you can lift weights from a seated or laying down position and get an amazing workout that works both your muscles and your heart.
If for whatever reason you are not comfortable with going for a jog down the street with your current condition, weight training can provide you everything you need for your workout without having to put any strain on your knees.
This is exactly how I used weights to my advantage when I was too out of shape to jog without risking pain or injury.
Months later I was in much better condition to jog, and it actually felt great, even though I still prefer lifting most of the time.
But remember to eat healthy along with your workouts, and you’ll intensify your results… getting more back for what you put in. If you want to start eating healthy AND exercising today, then try the 8-week weight loss challenge!
Sign up below to get your free 8-week diet and exercise plan, or join the course right here!
Citations:
Clark, James E. “Diet, Exercise or Diet with Exercise: Comparing the Effectiveness of Treatment Options for Weight-Loss and Changes in Fitness for Adults (18–65 Years Old) Who Are Overfat, or Obese; Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders 14 (2015): 31. PMC. Web. 23 Feb. 2018.
Barbara Strasser and Wolfgang Schobersberger, “Evidence for Resistance Training as a Treatment Therapy in Obesity,” Journal of Obesity, vol. 2011, Article ID 482564, 9 pages, 2011. doi:10.1155/2011/482564
Intensity of Resistance Exercise Determines Adipokine and Resting Energy Expenditure Responses in Overweight Elderly Individuals
Ioannis G. Fatouros, Athanasios Chatzinikolaou, Symeon Tournis, Michalis G.Nikolaidis, Athanasios Z. Jamurtas, Ioannis I. Douroudos, Ioannis Papassotiriou,Petros M. Thomakos, Kyriakos Taxildaris, George Mastorakos, Asimina Mitrakou
Diabetes Care Dec 2009, 32 (12) 2161-2167; DOI: 10.2337/dc08-1994
