Women often steer clear of the weight room favor of calorie-burning cardiovascular exercise. They may not consider weight training to be a viable weight-loss program, and as a result they may not make it a priority. Some women avoid weight training because they are afraid of gaining muscle weight and becoming overly bulky. In reality, weightlifting is an important part of any weight loss plan.
Calorie Burning
Losing weight requires you to be in a negative calorie balance---meaning that you burn more calories than you consume daily. A high intensity weightlifting routine can burn significant calories. If you perform several weight training exercises in a row as a circuit, you burn about nine calories a minute, according to Fitness Magazine. Do a 45 to 50 minute routine three days a week to burn 400 calories or more, depending on your size and intensity. In a month, you will have burned off 4,800 calories, or more than one pound, which is equivalent to 3,500 calories.
Increased Metabolism
Lean muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat tissue. One pound of lean muscle burns between 15 and 50 calories per day, depending on activity level. A pound of body fat burns just six calories per day, according to Apex Fitness. The average person can gain, at most, about a 1/2 pound of muscle per week. If you add five pounds of muscle over the course of several months, you can burn as much as 220 more calories per day, making weight loss and weight management far easier.
Considerations
When you lose weight, you always lose a combination of muscle and fat. If you do not perform weight training and lose pounds quickly, your body will start to dip into lean muscle for energy--causing you to weigh less, but not become any leaner, notes Tom Venuto, author of "The Body Fat Solution." Adding weight training can help you offset this loss of lean muscle mass. Although everyone responds to weight training differently, most women do not have the high levels of testosterone that create huge muscles. Women who weight train generally look lean, athletic and toned.
Indirect Effects on Weight Loss
Weight training also improves bone density. This helps impede the development of osteoporosis, which can cause older women to become inactive. It also helps enhance your stamina, facilitate daily function and reduce the chance of injury. These factors contribute to the ability to move more and do more physical activity during the day. This will result in a higher daily calorie burn, and possible weight loss. As you age, you lose muscle mass. Venuto notes that if you do not perform regular resistance training, you will lose up to 40 percent of your muscle mass by age 65. This results in a declining metabolism, weight gain and poor quality of life because of inability to function fully.
Strategy
To benefit from weight training, do at least two full-body workouts weekly. Rest a minimum of 48 hours between sessions. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends doing eight to 10 exercises that target all major muscle groups for one set of eight to 12 repetitions. Women often use very light weights because they are afraid of building large, unfeminine-looking muscles. Women, like men, should choose weights that fatigue you in your target number of sets, so the last one or two repetitions are hard to execute with proper form. Once you are able to easily do 12 repetitions of an exercise, increase your weight by about five to 10 percent. Every four to six weeks, change your routine by adding new exercises or altering the exercise order. Your body adapts to training, so keep it stimulated to burn maximum calories.
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