Ladies! Starting out fat has an advantage for awesome Muscle Tone later

[andicat628 1]

So I havent had my surgery yet but I will in about a month. I've been really concerned about losing my muscle while I lose weight. Obviously we all want to lose just fat and not any muscle but almost always we lose both when we drop weight. So I've been reading ALOT for many, many months on this very subject. I have found some very interesting articles about the benefit of starting out as a heavy girl in relation to awesome muscle tone later.

As woman its VERY difficult for us to build muscle. We simply dont have the testosterone to bulk up. So those super toned actresses you see on TV had to do some MAJOR lifting for hours and hours with expensive trainers and eat some serious bulking foods and suppliments to get that way. But we have an advantage as heavy girls; our bodies had to build a ton of muscle just to haul us around everyay. Everytime we lifted any part of our fat covered bodies we had to build muscle to do it. And guess what, we had to increase our bone density to do it too. Just standing up made our legs press our weight. So if you weigh 250, your just did a 250lb leg press everytime you get up.

So what am I getting at? Well this is the thing, if we were to keep all of that muscle while we lost the fat we would have that gorgeous muscle toned body that the beautiful actresses worked their butt off to get! We already have the muscle! The trick is to keep it. So how to do it...

Well most women focus almost soley on cardio. It's been beat into our heads that in order to be skinny we must use the treadmill for hours and hours. Well, while cardio is good for us, especially our hearts it doesnt do much for our muscles. In fact, alot of cardio has the ability to break down our muscles. Sure we need to do some, but Im suggesting as have many others have, do less cardio and do MORE weight lifting. Now I know that freaks alot of you out but working on your muscles has the abilty to not only give you that toned body but also increase your fat loss. Consider this; a pound of fat burns 5 calories a day but a pound of muscle can burn up to 50. So imagine how that metabolism could run if we had a lot more muscle then fat in bodies.

But here's the bad part; the more weight we lose, the less muscle our bodies need to carry us around. So after a couple months or bodies shed the muscle. Our bodies dont really want to use excess energy so if we dont use the muscle, we lose it. But if you use that muscle your body thinks "well I guess I need to keep that muscle". It doesnt know why you need it but if you are still using if for whatever reason, your body will keep it. So all you have to do is trick your body into keeping it.

You dont really need to spend a lot of time weight lifting really to achieve this but you do have to use a lot of weight. I know it might feel as though by using a lot of weight you are going to bulk up but that simply is not the case. As mentioned earlier, women do not have the testosterone to bulk up by nature. What happens is quite the opposite actually. Here is an example; you know how when you cut through a piece of steak it is marbled with fat? Well the same is true for our bodies. Our muscle is marbled with fat, so if we lose the fat then the muscle becomes leaner, more dense since fat takes up more space then muscle does. So instead of bulking up as you think you will, you WILL get smaller.

There is also a type of lifiting that I have never personally tried but plan to start. I will post a link at the end of this post if you would like to read up on it. Its called Static Contraction Training. It is the theory that if you just barely move a whole lot of weight you signal your muscle to stay and even get bigger. But you can read about it yourself.

Im just trying to get the word out that lifting weights is vital for women and losing weight and not something you should be afraid of. So ladies, have no fear, LIFT THOSE WEIGHTS! And add as much Protein as you can safely add to you diet to feed that muscle too.

Weight Training Vs. Cardio Wrokout - Cardio or Strength Training For Fat Loss

Why weight loss requires strength training, even in women and seniors by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

[StephC415 0]

Thank you for this. I am a believer in the same theory. I plan to get banded in January and this is one thing that I am going to focus on. The last thing I want to do it get "skinny fat". My husband and I used to work out with kettlebells and we loved the workouts. I plan on using them as they are very heavy and you can use them for many moves and for a complete body workout. Good luck to you and thank you for posting this.

[vagabond 0]

Thanks for the tip, I started weight training 6 weeks after my surgery and also believe in this theory. I do 3 days of intensive weight training and 5-6 days of cardio which I think is a good balance. Looks like I might want to reduce the cardio and increase the weight training.

[Jachut 487]

Why not combine lifting weights with cardio in one workout?

There's tons of stuff on the net - things like turbulence training, but basically, standing round hoiking dumbells for isolated muscle exercises isnt that efficient - whole body compound moves (like squats whilst pushing a barbell above your head) ARE. Pushups, pullups, dips, lunges, THOSE are the moves to focus on. Do them fast and hard circuit style and dont waste your time on the gym machines, and i guarantee you'll TORCH the body fat. It really really works. Do it at an intensity that almost makes you puke. Use heavy heavy weight and low reps and work fast - your heartrate will go through the roof.

For cardio - long and slow builds endurance, which is fine to a point. Any overweight person will find they shed weight from doing that when they've been inactive. But eventually your body becomes efficient and do too much and you do tend to compromise muscle. Instead, do interval workouts - shorter time, shorter distance but with sprints and recoveries. It just about makes you puke but it really works. Do this on your non lifting days.

I agree, the days of running for hours on end, or cycling and working easy in that "fat burning zone" (total myth that one) are well past. Even though I lost most of my weight running relatively long distances, I needed to switch over to get the last of it off. And I can still pull out a 10km run whenever I feel like it, I dont need to do it 4 times a week to maintain the endurance. But I burn more fat working short and really HARD.

But hard is the key! It needs to just about make you puke.