If you want to lose weight and change your body's appearance, a beneficial thing you can do is to lift weights. Not only does it burn calories and boost your metabolism, but it can help make you stronger and increase your self-esteem.
Identification
It takes 3,500 calories to equal one pound of fat, meaning you'll need to burn an extra 3,500 calories per week for each pound you wish to lose. If you burn 500 calories more per day with exercise one day a week, you can reach that goal. For overall health, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends you get at least two hours and 30 minutes per week of moderate aerobic activity or one hour and 15 minutes of vigorous exercise, as well as to strength train with weights at least twice a week.
Types
Strength training uses resistance to muscular contraction to tone muscles and burn calories. You can use your own body via push-ups, squats or abdominal crunches, or use free weights such as dumbbells or resistance bands. You also can perform strength training on exercise machines. Circuit training is a combination of high-intensity aerobics and resistance training and involves eight to 10 exercises or machines in rapid succession with no rest between.
Caloric Burn
The exact number of calories burned during strength training workouts depends on intensity, time and your body composition. According to the Harvard Medical School, on average, caloric burn ranges from 90 calories per hour of moderate training by a 125-pound person to up to 266 calories per hour of vigorous effort by a 185-pound person. Circuit training burns even more. Christopher Scott, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the University of Southern Maine, began using a modified method to estimate energy expenditure and found that weight training burns up to 71 percent more calories than originally thought. By his calculations, just one circuit of eight exercises taking about eight minutes can expend 159 to 231 calories, or about the same as running at a 6-minute-mile pace.
Benefits
Strength training has an added benefit for weight loss in addition to just burning calories. It will raise your muscle metabolism during the exercise session and continue for a long time afterward, even days following high-intensity workouts, according to Ian Lee, fitness specialist for Askmen.com. More muscle mass can also help create a leaner, toner look, even if you weigh the same as you did when you were a lot flabbier. Adam Campbell, author of "The Women's Health Big Book of Exercises," reports on research showing that between the ages of 30 and 50, you're likely to lose 10 percent of the total muscle on your body, which can double to 20 percent by the time you reach 60. Campbell also points out that people with type 2 diabetes who start strength training can significantly lowered their blood sugar levels.
Misconceptions
Many women are afraid to attempt strength training because they believe if will make them bulk up and look like male bodybuilders. Although women will add muscle tone, it's very difficult for a woman to bulk up without added protein and steroid supplements, according to the National Institutes of Health. It's also a common myth that if you stop strength training, your muscles will "turn" into fat, which is impossible since they're two separate substances.
Expert Insight
A study by W. W. Campbell et al and published in the "American Society for Clinical Nutrition" in 1994 reported that subjects in the study aged 56 to 80 years old produced four pounds of fat loss after three months of strength training, even though the subjects were eating 15 percent more calories in a day. In other words, they gained three pounds of muscle and lost four pounds of fat, but they were able to do so while consuming more calories.
References
- Dr. Buttar: Lifting Weights Burns Fat
- Oprah.com: 20 Ways Lifting Helps You Look Great
- Exercise for Weight Loss: Calories Burned in an Hour
- "Harvard Health Letter": Calories Burned in 30 Minutes
- "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition": Increased energy requirements and changes in body composition with resistance training in older adults
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