Why do we lift weights when trying to lose body fat???

If you’ve tried and failed to lose weight before, the chances are you tried to do it through more running or cycling, especially slow, long-distance jogs or rides., basically long, slow boring cardio.

While steady-state cardio has many health benefits, maximising fat loss isn’t one of them. Instead you need to hit the free weights if you want to get lean and transform your body.

I go into much more detail on all this in the Strong Girl Guide grab a free copy.

Weight Training Increases Short-Term Calorie Burn

woman, weightlifting, front squat, aaron schiavone

Studies have demonstrated that after a weight-training workout, metabolism can be boosted for up to 38 hours post-workout. This means that rather than burning, say, 60 calories an hour while sitting and watching TV, you're burning 70.

While you may not think that 10 extra calories is a big deal, when you multiply this by 38 hours, you can see what a huge difference it can make in your daily calorie expenditure.

When you figure that out on a monthly rate, it becomes even clearer how regular participation in weight training will really increase your capacity to burn calories, and thus fat.

With cardio training, you might get an extra 40-80 calories burned after a moderately paced session, but this will depend upon the exact intensity and duration of the workout. In order to generate a high amount of post-calorie burn from cardio, you'd have to be doing it for a very long duration of time.

Sprinting is a slightly different story and will create effects with your metabolic rate closer to that of weight lifting, so that's something to consider as well. However, you must be sprinting hard in order to see the benefits, which is something some people struggle with.

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Weight Training Increases Long-Term Calorie Burn

The second factor to consider in the fat-loss war is long-term metabolic increases. While it's great to be burning more calories for 38 hours after the workout, that's not going to help you two weeks from now, unless you are consistent with your workout program (which you should be, otherwise what are you paying me for?).

What weight training will enable you to do is build up a larger degree of lean muscle mass, which then basically serves as a calorie-burning powerhouse in the body.

The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you need and the better the calorie-burning results you will obtain.

Since muscle tissue is fairly stable (as long as you train the muscle and you are eat enough protein, it won't be lost), this is an effective long-term strategy for losing body fat.

This is the primary reason men can typically eat more than women without gaining weight—they have more lean muscle mass on their body, thus they are burning more calories around-the-clock.

To add to this point, it's important that you are realistic with how much muscle mass you can build in a given period of time.

Naturally, males will be able to generate between 1-2 pounds of pure muscle mass in a given month and females will get about half that, around 0.5-1 pound in the first 12-24 months of training (assuming a calorie surplus to build muscle).

Over time, though, with consistent effort, this will make you dramatically more resistant to weight gain as you grow older, making it extremely beneficial.

Weight Training And Changing Your Shape

Another big benefit that weight training has over cardio training is that it will allow you to completely reshape your body. Cardio training will generally help you lose weight, however, this weight loss is typically a combination of fat and muscle, so what you're left with is a smaller version of your current self.

When you are performing resistance training, while following a calorie-restricted diet, then you stand a better chance of losing strictly body fat, while helping to enhance the natural curves of your body.

This will give you a much better overall transformation than if you just lost weight doing cardio. If you've ever noticed someone who has lost a considerable amount of weight but still looks somewhat "soft," that's usually why—they have lost some fat, but their muscles have shrunk too.

Cardio And Calorie Burn

If you do a longer cardio session, you could burn somewhere in the region of 500-800 calories, depending on the exact length and intensity level. That is a fairly decent number and will definitely help with your fat-loss goals.

Since you must burn off 3,500 calories in order to lose one pound of body fat, if you do enough of these cardio sessions, and make sure you're keeping track of your macronutrient intake, weight loss will take place.

But, keep in mind that you are going to have to keep doing those long cardio sessions. Time will likely become a big factor with this one, and boredom could start to play a role over time, too.

Take it from a guy who once did fasted cardio for an hour a day 7 days a week for 2 months.....it fucking sucks, more on that another time.

While a weight-training session may not burn as many calories per minute during the actual workout (although that can depend on how intense the weight lifting is), the overall calorie-burning benefits you receive from it typically outweigh those of cardio.

In conclusion - While doing cardio can help your fat-loss goals, weight training is more effective and will also give you a more toned body shape.

While lifting weights can help you build muscle mass, that muscle mass will in turn help you lose fat mass. And if you just want to lose fat and don't want to get hugely muscular, don't worry, that takes a lot of effort and won't happen just by showing up to the gym or PT a few times a week.

If losing fat is your goal, lifting weights can only help you, and that's why I make it a priority.

Want to learn the key principles all my clients follow to get amazing results every time then grab a copy of The Strong Girl Guide HERE