Do You Gain Weight When You Do Strength Training?

Exercising and eating a healthy diet are a key for effective weight loss. Strength training is a form of exercise that involves contracting muscles against heavy resistance. As a result of regular strength training, your muscle strength and mass increases. Strength training helps you lose fat in two ways; you will burn fat during the exercise and, because of increased muscle mass increases your metabolism, you will burn more fat even at rest.

Muscle Mass and Weight

The reason you gain weight when you do strength training is because your muscle mass and size increases. Your muscles are built from several fibers, each of which is built from myofilaments. When you strength train, your muscles respond by increasing the number of myofilaments in each muscle fiber. As a result, your muscle mass increases. So the number of muscle fibers stays the same but the size and mass of the fibers grows.

Muscle Weight vs. Fat Weight

Although weight training can increase your body weight, this is not the same thing as gaining fat. When you eat more calories than your daily energy need is, your body will store the excess calories as fat. If you continue overeating, your fat storages begin to grow and you will gain weight. Gaining fat and gaining muscle are two different things. Although both of these lead to increased body weight, muscle weight is not bad for your health unlike excess fat weight. Overweight and obese refers to individuals with excess fat storages in their body. Obesity is a serious health problem that increases the risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and more.

Size vs. Weight

You might have heard the saying "muscles weigh more than fat." This is not completely correct. One pound of muscle will weigh the same as one pound of fat. However, muscle tissue is denser than adipose tissue, which means that the volume or size of a pound of muscle is less than a pound of adipose tissue. So when you lose 1 lb. of adipose tissue and at the same time gain 1 lb. of muscle tissue, your weight stays the same but your body size decreases. Due to this, when you are dieting and exercising, a better way to monitor your weight loss is to measure your waist circumference and not measure your body weight.

Nutrition and Weight Gain

Nutrition is important not only for weight loss but also for building muscles. Proteins are the major building blocks of muscle tissue and if you are not getting enough protein from your diet, your muscle growth is limited. According to the "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010" you should get 10 to 35 percent of your daily calories from proteins, 45 to 65 percent form carbohydrates and 20 to 35 percent from fats. Eat a healthy and complete diet and exercise regularly for optimal fat burning.