Weight lifting can help women improve muscle tone, increase bone strength and lose weight. "Women's Health" magazine reports that just two weight lifting workouts a week can help women lose as much as 3 percent of their overall body fat in 10 weeks. This can result in a loss of up to three inches of weight from the hips and waist.
Calories
Losing weight means burning more calories than you consume. Cardiovascular exercise, such as running, walking, or biking, may help you burn calories, but you can burn more calories in the 24 hours after an hour of weight lifting than you would after an hour of cardio. Weight lifting burns calories even when you're not exercising.
Metabolism
As women age they lose lean muscle mass and their metabolism slows down. By lifting weights, you can restore and even increase your lean muscle mass, which means your metabolism will work faster while resting. Losing 10 pounds of fat and replacing it with 10 pounds of muscle can help you metabolize an extra 25 to 50 calories per day.
Benefits
Not only can lifting weights help women lose weight, but it can also improve balance and increase bone density, which may help prevent osteoporosis. Weight lifting also promotes muscle endurance, which can give you more stamina and energy throughout the day.
Considerations
Don't use the scale as your only measurement of progress when lifting weights to lose weight -- your jeans size may be a better indicator of the progress you're making. This is because muscle is more dense than fat tissue, which means you might weigh the same, but you have a smaller figure.
Misconceptions
Some women worry that incorporating weight lifting or resistance training into their exercise routine will give them large, masculine-looking muscles. The majority of women do not have the amount of testosterone necessary to build such muscles without lifting weights intensely for one to two hours every day.
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