Weight Training and Permanent Fat Loss

Last Updated on Sunday, 25 July 2010 08:28 Written by Yasar Shahzad Monday, 12 July 2010 15:06

The focal point of our fat-burning system is nutrition. In fact, it might be the most comprehensive nutrition system for fat loss ever developed. Although eighty percent of this program is about nutrition, that is only one component in a four part strategy, including: 1) goal setting and motivation, (2) nutrition, (3) aerobic training and (4) weight training. All four components are essential for permanent fat loss and building lean muscles at the same time; neglecting any component is going to compromise your results.

No one really knows what percentage nutrition actually contributes to your results as compared to training - your guess is as good as mine. But one thing is for sure: To go on a diet without a complete exercise program including weights, cardio and a crystal clear goal is not only ineffective, it’s a prescription for disaster. When you go on a calorie restricted diet and you don’t do any weight training, you will almost always lose lean body mass. Weight training is the only way to keep your muscle while you’re dieting for fat loss.

Metabolic synergism: The secret to multiplying your results by combining motivation, nutrition, aerobic exercise and weight training.
The secret to losing fat safely and permanently at the maximum possible rate is not weight training, cardio, motivational techniques or nutrition. The secret is the combination of all four. The effects of these four disciplines put together are far greater than the sum of their parts. That’s called “synergism.” Synergism means that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 might not equal four, it might equal forty or four hundred! Each component of this program complements and enhances the others, resulting in progress that is exponentially faster than if you only used one or two of them in isolation.

How Weight Training Helps You Get Leaner

Most people only associate weight training with building muscle and increasing strength. Few people realize the impact weight training has on fat loss. Here’s why: Weight training increases your lean body mass. Increasing your lean body mass speeds up your metabolic rate so you burn more calories at rest – and the number of calories you burn at rest (your basal metabolic rate) is directly proportional to the amount of muscle you carry.

For example, if man weighs 176 pounds with a body fat of 19%, his lean body mass is 142.6 pounds and his basal metabolic rate is 1770 calories per day. Suppose he drops his body fat to 9%, and then he builds back up to 176 pounds, while maintaining his bodyfat at only 9%. His lean body mass is now 160 pounds with a basal metabolic rate of 1940 calories per day.

He now burns 170 calories a day more than before, with no additional exercise or calorie restriction! He even burns more calories when he’s doing absolutely nothing (even while he sits at his desk, watches TV or snoozes). Does an extra 170 calories a day make a difference? Well, let’s do the math: There are 3500 calories in a pound of stored body fat. Three thousand five hundred calories divided by 170 extra calories burned per day equals an extra pound of body fat lost every 20.5 days, which adds up to 17.7 pounds of extra fat lost per year with no additional activity.

It’s a common misconception that if you have a lot of weight to lose, you should lose the fat with cardio first before starting a weight-training program. Actually, the opposite is true; weight training always accelerates fat loss, although it happens primarily through an indirect mechanism. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns fat, and lifting weights builds muscle, therefore weight training must be a part of every fat loss program. This doesn’t mean you need to look like or train like a bodybuilder, unless that’s your goal. It simply means that weight training is equally as important as aerobic training even when your goal is fat loss. Aerobics by itself doesn't cut it.

Weight training by itself doesn’t cut it either – weights and cardio work synergistically together for maximum fat loss without muscle loss
For years, weight training was like Rodney Dangerfield – it didn’t get any respect. Weight lifters were viewed as weirdoes or freaks. Athletes were encouraged NOT to lift weights. Even a few short decades ago, it was thought that weight training made you muscle bound, slowed you down and raised your blood pressure. At one time, even the medical establishment suggested avoiding weight training in favor of aerobic exercise.

Today, all world-class athletes do serious weight training. Every pro sports team has a strength and conditioning coach, and meticulously structured training programs have increased athletic performance to levels previously undreamed of. Physicians now recommend weight training for cardiovascular health, improved bone density and other health benefits. In 1990, the American College of Sports Medicine released a new position statement stating that weight training decreased cardiovascular risk factors and was actually good for your health all along. The bodybuilders had received their vindication!

It was great news for the bodybuilders when the scientific, medical and athletic communities began to support strength training, except for one thing.
Many self-proclaimed strength training “gurus” are now taking the other extreme, suggesting that weight training is the best exercise for fat loss and aerobics is some kind of evil muscle-devouring monster. Let me clear this up for the record – weight training is an important part of a fat burning program, but weight training is not “the best” fat burning exercise. The best way to burn fat is the combination of cardio, weights and nutrition, all directed towards the achievement of a specific, written goal.

The increase in resting metabolism that comes from weight training is not enough to get maximum fat loss for most body types. It’s important to realize that the primary fat burning effect of weight training comes after the workout from the increase in BMR and from the increase in post-exercise metabolic rate. During weight training workouts, you are burning primarily sugar. The increase in post-exercise metabolism from cardio, on the other hand, is relatively small (with the exception of very high intensity cardio). Cardio provides the majority of the fat burning benefits during the workout, because aerobic exercise uses oxygen and is therefore fat-burning in nature. That’s why immediately after every 30 minute cardio workout you could accurately say, “I am now leaner than I was a half an hour ago.”

All calories burned will have an impact on fat loss because overall calorie balance is what really matters in the long run. However, it’s my contention that sustained fat burning, oxygen-utilizing aerobic exercise is critical for fat loss – especially in endomorph body types. If you’re the type of person with stubborn body fat, weight training alone is never going cut it. This program is, by definition, a weight training, nutrition and aerobic exercise program. If you’re not doing all three, and you don’t have written goals, you’re not following the program.