The View from the Classroom

If you didn’t read part 1, go do it…NOW!  It’s not that long and will only take like 2 minutes or less.

Anyway, in Part 1, I talked about benefit number 1 to weight training, “Increasing Strength” and how that happens without increasing muscle size.  Today’s blog will focus on the second benefit, “Increased Muscle Mass/Decreased Body Fat.”

Now women, you may be thinking “you just told me I could increase strength without worrying about getting big, bulky muscles and today you’re gonna talk about getting big, bulky muscles…I’m confused…aren’t those contradictory??????”  When I talk about increasing muscle mass, I’m not talking about getting big, bulky muscles.  Fact is, women don’t naturally have the hormonal make-up to add big muscles nor do most do what it takes training and diet-wise to get big and bulky.  So just put the words big and bulky away.  Won’t happen without a lot of focused action with that goal in mind.

So, what do I mean by “Increased Muscle Mass/Decreased Body Fat”????? 

When weight-training or training to increase your strength consistently over a period of time and provided you are eating enough of the right kinds of food (subject of a later blog), you will inevitably add some muscle to your body.  Again, we’re not talking big, bulky muscles, just some muscle.  Muscle is different from fat in numerous ways…it looks better for one as it is more dense than fat.  More dense means it takes up less space which means if you add muscle and lose fat you may weigh more but be smaller.  Who doesn’t want to be smaller?  Let me rephrase that…what non-bodybuilding woman doesn’t want to be smaller? 

AND…muscle requires energy (calories) to merely exist.  Fat does nothing but exist.  Muscle burns calories even if you are doing absolutely nothing.  The implication being that, if you add some muscle, you will burn more calories all the time, not just while exercising and thus, you can eat more and maintain your weight or burn fat and lose weight, depending upon your goals.  Why do you think men can do this?  They have more muscle so they burn more calories all the time!!

Now, if you’re skeptical, just try it.  Add some weight-training to your fitness program for a 6-week period and see what happens…what do you have to lose?

 This is exactly what I did last summer when starting to workout with weights.  What happened?  Well, the first six weeks, I stayed at EXACTLY the same weight, however, my clothes size went down…a testament to the statement I made above about being smaller.  Then we went on vacation…I ate well and continued to workout.  Upon returning from vacation I got more aggressive with the weights and made some additional diet changes.  What happened?  My weight decreased by about 10 pounds in a 4-week period and I dropped about two more sizes. 

The amazing part came when I started back to school after the summer break.  Now, realize that when school let out for summer, I had lost about 30+ pounds in the 5 months preceding,  but had only dropped about 1 to 2 sizes in my clothing.  Over the summer I lost only 10 pounds and another 2 to 3 sizes in my clothing.  The comments I got from co-workers upon returning to work amazed me.  I knew I had lost some weight, but didn’t really realize how I had transformed my body until those who had not seen me for awhile saw me for the first time.  Awesome feeling it was!!

Add the weights and you too can experience that feeling.  Again, I ask,  what do you have to lose?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 8:32 am and is filed under Need Motivation?, The Whys of Weight Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.