Why is strength training important for losing weight

[Guest guest]

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Why weight loss requires strength training, even in women and seniors

Did you know that strength training is crucial for successfully

losing weight and keeping it off? I'm talking about weight-bearing

exercise. It doesn't have to be a huge, hulking workout where you're

trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, it just has

to be some basic strength training.

Why is strength training important for losing weight? Because a lot

of people try to starve themselves into weight loss. They think it's

all about controlling calories. Unfortunately, a lot of dieticians

and nutritionists don't really understand strength training, and

they also think that it's just about calories. Calories in, calories

out. If you have a calorie deficit, you're going to lose weight, if

you consume extra calories, you'll gain body fat. While that's true,

it's only part of the picture. Sure, you need a calorie deficit to

lose weight, but how does your body actually use calories? It's your

lean body mass, that muscle mass underneath your body fat, that

burns calories 24/7, allowing you to actually eat more calories

without gaining weight.

Let's say you happen to be quite obese and you have a high

percentage of body fat. I used to be in that situation; I know what

it feels like. Underneath that body fat you actually have a very

strong skeleton and strong muscles. Your body has built up those

muscles in order to carry all of that extra body fat when you move

your body. Just the very act of standing up, walking across a

parking lot, going up a flight of stairs or lifting your arms

requires more effort when you're overweight, especially if you're

obese. So the heavier you are, the stronger your muscles have to be

just to allow you to do basic, everyday things.

Now this can actually work to your advantage -- if you manage to

keep all of that muscle mass and bone density in place while you are

losing body fat, then you can maintain the high metabolism that's

associated with that lean body mass even while you are dropping body

fat. But if you starve yourself, you're going to lose all the muscle

resources you already have. It's a mistake a lot of people make.

They try to lose body fat by starving themselves, and as the body

fat vanishes from their body, their muscle mass also disappears. Why

would the body get rid of muscle mass? Because, frankly, it doesn't

need it.

Your body adapts to the need

You see, the body is an adaptive system. It will adapt to whatever

loads you place on it. So if you are a heavier person and you're

carrying around body fat, then your body will adapt by creating

stronger muscles to lift your body. It's almost like doing a leg

press every time you get up out of the chair. If you weigh 300 lbs

you're doing a 300 lb leg press, you see? Now if you were to drop

150 lbs of body fat and end up at 150 lbs, your body wouldn't need

the same amount of leg muscle to lift you. It would eliminate those

leg muscles through catabolic action.

While it eliminates this muscle mass, your metabolism begins to

slow. Remember, it's the lean body mass that's burning calories day

in and day out, even when you're doing nothing. If you reduce that

muscle mass by allowing it to go away (by not challenging your

muscles), then your metabolism is going to slow. A lot of people end

up at a place where they've lost the body fat and they're lighter,

but it's suddenly so much easier to put on body fat. They don't have

the muscle mass they once did, they're not automatically burning

calories, and if they overeat just a little bit, they'll start

packing on the body fat again.

Strength train while losing weight

The solution to all of this, the strategy I want to focus on here,

is to engage in strength training while you are losing body fat. If

you do this, then you will be able to maintain the muscle mass that

you already have underneath your body fat while you are in the

process of losing the fat. This will leave you with a greater

proportion of lean body mass to body fat, meaning that you will be

slimmer, yet you'll have the muscles that you had when you were

overweight.

If you get rid of enough body fat in this way, then those muscles

may begin to show -- if you're a man. If you're a woman, don't

worry. You're never going to bulk up. A lot of women are mistakenly

afraid of strength training. They think that if they pump a few

weights they're going to turn into Lou Ferrigno overnight. They

think they're going to have this competition muscle-bound body from

lifting a couple of weights. Believe me, that is not the case at

all. Most of those bodybuilding women are using steroids, and

they've trained for years, even decades, just to produce that kind

of muscle mass. Women are not built to puts on lots of muscle mass,

so don't be afraid that you'll bulk up. Women who are afraid of

exercising because they think it's going to make them look bigger

have it all wrong.

Women need strength training, too

Let's take a moment to cover that myth here. Let's say you're a

woman and you have more body fat than you want. You're trying to

decide, " Should I engage in strength training as part of my weight

loss program? " Some women say, " No, because I'll bulk up and it'll

make me look fatter. " That's a complete myth; it's totally false.

When you have a high percentage of body fat, that body fat is stored

not only in the tissues that are obvious -- such as your hips and

your midsection, your arms and legs and so on -- it's also stored

intramuscularly, which means it's stored within the muscles of your

body. It's sort of like the marbling of beef from a cow. If you

slice a muscle from a cow, there's some fat inside the muscle --

that is the same kind of fat that's in our muscles when we have a

high percentage of body fat.

That fat takes up a lot of space in the muscle, so it actually makes

the muscle look bigger, because there's fat inside. When you start

losing body fat, even if you're engaged in strength training, that

intramuscular fat will begin to vanish. So even if your muscle mass

begins to grow -- which, again, is very difficult for women to

accomplish -- your overall muscle size is probably going to be

smaller when you're at a lower percentage of body fat. The net

change in your muscle size is going to be almost nothing, unless you

really start to do strength training on a regular basis for a period

of a year or two, and then you might actually begin to put on a

little bit more muscle.

Don't lose the muscle you've already built

So with that crazy myth covered, let's get back to the main point

here, which is that engaging in strength training will conserve the

muscle mass you have now. Now here's why this is so important. It's

very easy for your body to shed useless muscle. So if you're not

using a muscle, your body will get rid of it over a few months. It's

gone. But to gain that muscle back -- now that takes some effort!

That could take months or years of strength training. It is much

harder for your body to engage in anabolic reactions (to build

muscle mass) than it is for your body to catabolize and get rid of

muscles. So, if you decide you're going to starve yourself while you

lose weight and get down to the minimum weight possible, and

afterwards you engage in strength training, then you're going to

find that it's a much more difficult process to gain lean body mass

than it was to slim away what you had to begin with. Building lean

body mass is a huge challenge.

It's also important to note that when people talk about weight loss,

they throw that term around without really understanding what it

means. Everybody says " I want to lose weight, " but they don't really

mean that. They mean they want to lose body fat; they don't want to

just lose weight. A limb amputation will cause you to lose weight,

but that's not what people have in mind! People want to lose body

fat. So be careful what you wish for -- and don't use that bathroom

scale as a measure of your progress. There are a number of reasons

why.

One is if you just starve yourself and you start losing lean body

mass, then that counts as weight loss. But you've done yourself no

good whatsoever, because now you've actually lowered your

metabolism. The scale says, " Hey! You lost another three pounds! "

But it could be 2 lbs of fat and 1 lb of muscle, and that's not a

good situation to be in. You want to lose maybe 2.9 lbs of fat and

0.1 lbs of muscle, or maybe 3 lbs of fat and no muscle. But to do

that, you've got to challenge your muscular system through some

weight bearing exercise.

Don't forget the glycogen fuel stored in your body

The other thing to keep in mind when you're using the bathroom scale

is that when you first start limiting your calories, your body is

going to start burning through its glycogen stores. Glycogen is

basically a fuel stored in your body. It stores sugars together with

water and locks them up in the tissues and organs of your body like

an energy battery, ready for you to use at a future time.

There's water locked in with those calories. That water weighs a

lot. So when you start restricting your calories, the first thing

your body burns is this extra storage of energy, this extra

glycogen. And the glycogen causes you, as it's burned, to shed

water. You might look at the scale and think, gee, I lost 5 lbs, but

you really lost no body fat whatsoever. It was just water, because

your body released glycogen. What usually happens to people when

their glycogen store has reached zero is they get really hungry,

they think they're in a starvation panic, and then they overeat.

Their glycogen stores fill right back up, they gain the 5 lbs back,

and usually they overate to such an extent that they store another

half a pound of body fat or so. Now they're half a pound heavier

than when they began and they lost no body fat whatsoever. It was

just a game of glycogen and water storage they saw reflected on the

bathroom scale.

Bathroom scales are useless

So ignore the bathroom scale. It is not useful for telling you how

successful you are in losing body fat. I don't use one at all. The

only measure you should use is a " fat scale " or a caliper. A caliper

is the best way to measure body fat. Body fat calipers measure the

thickness of body fat in key locations around your body. For men,

one location is on the upper pectoral area, another is the

midsection and the third is on the top of the quadriceps of the leg.

For women it's the back of the arm, the midsection and along the

hip.

However, you've got to learn how to use a caliper correctly if you

want it to be an accurate indicator of fat loss success. I just

mention it as a tool for people who are really serious about losing

fat. People who use bathroom scales to figure out how much weight

they've lost are just playing a silly game of deception -- the

bathroom scale is useless. I mean, you could lose bone mass and

you'd still look like you were having lots of progress on the

bathroom scale.

How do you lose bone mass? Easy: you stop engaging in exercise, stop

walking, stop running. If you do all that (which I'm not

recommending, by the way), then you would start to lose bone mineral

density, and that would be reflected as weight loss. When you say

you want to lose weight, be careful what you ask for. Your body has

a number of ways to lose weight that have nothing whatsoever to do

with losing body fat or enhancing your overall state of health.

Engage in weight training when losing body fat

Now let's get back to the main point, strength training and why it

is so important. So far, I hope I've explained the idea that

underneath your body fat you have a strong musculoskeletal system.

There's a lot of muscle mass and good, strong bones underneath all

of that body fat. If you find a strategy to conserve that, even

while you're losing body fat, then you can have a much more

successful weight loss experience and end up with a strong skeleton

and strong muscles at the end of your regimen as well.

The way to do that is to engage in basic weight-bearing strength

training while you are pursuing a diet. And it turns out that you

don't have to go crazy on this. I am not suggesting that you go to

the gym and start pumping iron on the bench press, 50 reps a day, or

that you exhaust your body with crazy workouts. It turns out that

you don't even need to stress your body very much to maintain the

current muscle mass that you have.

15 seconds of stress creates new muscle

In fact, there's a system of strength training called static

contraction training that is outstanding for maintaining current

muscle mass and even enhancing it if you choose to go that far. The

best thing is that it takes very little time. How much time am I

talking about? You'll be amazed to hear this, but literally, it's

true: 15 seconds per muscle group per week. Only 15 seconds per

muscle. If you engage that muscle for 15 seconds with high intensity

contraction, then your body gets the signal that, hey, it needs that

muscle. It needs to keep it around. And your body decides NOT to let

that muscle go. It just keeps it, because it figures you need it.

Remember, your body has a lot of wisdom, and it's trying to conserve

calories. The body wants to get rid of muscles it doesn't need, and

in order to keep those muscles, you have to prove to your body that

you need them. Now the thing is, your body doesn't know why you need

them. It could be that you're engaged in some kind of competition,

it could be that you need to lift heavy things to survive. Your body

doesn't really know the reason why. You can essentially fool your

body by engaging in strength training, giving it the message that it

needs to hold on to those muscles in order to survive. So in as

little as 15 seconds per muscle group, you can tell your body to

hold on to your muscle mass. That's a 15 second bicep curl, for

example, or a 15 second chest press, or a 15 second leg curl…you get

the idea.

To learn more on this, I suggest you get a book called Power Factor

Training by Little and Pete Sisco. Check out that book. It

gives you the lowdown on how to do this. It's positioned at

bodybuilders, but it's actually the underground secret book of

strength training for people who are 50 years and older. Senior

citizens benefit from this tremendously. There are also many golfers

who use this system to greatly increase their range and golf swing.

Women are additionally benefiting from this system -- when you're

dealing with the potential for osteoporosis when you get up in your

years, bone density becomes crucial for your overall health. There

is no better way in the world to make sure you have strong bone

density than to engage in high intensity, short duration strength

training exercises. Static contraction training is, in my view, the

very best system of exercise for maintaining not just muscle mass,

but also bone mineral density. You will also strengthen your

ligaments and tendons.

The key is, as with all forms of exercise, to be sure to work with a

qualified health professional before attempting this, especially

some of the more high intensity exercises. You may want to ease your

way into it and check with your naturopath, doctor or physical

therapist to make sure you're ready for this. You don't want to

injure yourself -- that would set you back weeks. So take it a

little bit at a time. Remember, your body will adapt slowly, so ease

into it slowly. By doing all of this, you'll be able to conserve the

incredible muscle mass that you have underneath that body fat right

now.

Accelerated weight loss

The other benefit to doing this is that strength training will

greatly increase the speed of your weight loss effort. It will

double the effectiveness of any weight loss program you're on.

Losing weight by calorie restriction alone is very, very difficult.

In fact, personally, I've never been able to do that. The only way

I've been able to lose body fat (I lost over 50 lbs of body fat, and

I've kept it off for several years now) is to engage in exercise

that includes both a strength training component and a

cardiovascular component. My belief is that you cannot keep weight

off just by modifying your diet alone, unless you happen to be

extremely gifted with just the right genes that don't ever turn on

the hunger signal for you. If you're in that situation, good for

you. But you should probably think about exercising anyway, because

of the other cardiovascular health and brain chemistry benefits that

are derived from frequent exercise.

Alternative training: Pilates

Now, some people say " Well, I can't join a gym, I can't exercise, I

don't want to go to that website and look up static contraction

training, I don't want to do that, I don't want to pump weights.

What do I do instead? " There's a great solution for people who don't

want to pump weights, and I understand a lot of women are in this

situation, nothing wrong with that. You can be very strong without

pumping weights if you follow Pilates.

Pilates is a form of body movement and flexibility training that was

pioneered by ph Pilates almost 100 years ago. The guy was well

ahead of his time. This is a system that I definitely follow today.

The movements require a lot of strength, but not so much that you

can't get started. There are simple ways to get started with Pilates

on a mat that would greatly boost your muscle mass and your overall

strength -- especially your abdominal strength and your lower back

strength. And then, as you gain comfort with that, you can move up

to the more advanced movements in Pilates.

And you can even get Pilates equipment, which is rather affordable.

The best place for that (in fact we're going to do a review on some

of these machines later) is Pilates.com, which is the website of a

manufacturer of Pilates equipment. They have outstanding equipment --

5 stars all the way. This company is great! They even have an

affordable home version of this Pilates equipment that runs only a

couple of hundred dollars. Well worth the investment.

What does this Pilates system do for you? It will give you strength

training all over your body -- in your hips, adduction and abduction

muscles, abdominal muscles, lower back, traps, biceps, triceps,

chest, upper body, lower body and especially in your midsection. It

will do all of this for you -- I should say with you -- without

using any weights. So you don't have to set up a bench press with

200 lbs and see how many reps you can bang out. Pilates can be done

in a more artful way. It is a form of body movement that can be very

yoga-like if you choose, or it can be done with more power. This is

why both men and women find Pilates to be a fantastic system of

strength training. I know a lot of people in the performing arts

community who rely on Pilates to maintain core strength and

flexibility throughout their body, including in their arms, legs and

neck muscles.

The cure for joint pain

I've got to mention this too: If you engage in Pilates, you may

experience one of the benefits that almost everybody experiences

when they do this for a couple of months: their joint pain begins to

disappear. People always complain about their joint pain, it seems.

When I'm at the gym, I hear guys in their 40s -- they're only 45

years old! -- and they're complaining and whining about how much

everything hurts. They say, " Oh, wait 'til you're my age,

everything's gonna hurt! " And I respond with, " I don't think so! "

I've experienced chronic pain, and I know what that feels like. But

now I do Pilates and engage in outstanding nutrition (see related

ebook on nutrition) and the pain is gone.

The body is designed to be healthy, it's not supposed to hurt. If

you feed your body right and if you use and mobilize all those

joints, they will not hurt, even to the age of 100. There's no

reason why we can't live to 100 in a state of perfect health with

outstanding cognitive function, free of chronic pain. But to do

that, you have to use it. I firmly believe in the concept of " use it

or lose it. " If you're not using those joints, then you're going to

lose their range of motion.

Just ask any physical therapist, they will tell you much the same.

You have to have range of motion in order to be free of pain. The

difficulty is that as we get older, we tend to stop using all of

those muscles and joints in their full range of motion. A lot of

people who say that chronic pain is related to aging are really

confusing cause and effect. It's not related to aging, it's related

to the number of years that they've stopped using their body.

For example, take a person who is a dancer or someone engaged in

yoga, Pilates or flexibility well into their 80s or 90s, and they

won't have joint pain. If aging causes joint pain, then how is it

that these people have no pain? The answer is because they keep

mobilizing those joints, they keep using their body. They engage in

Tai Chi or other gentle body movements. And they are free from pain.

By the way, Tai Chi is another outstanding way to get range of

motion, but it won't do quite the same thing for you in terms of

muscle mass as Pilates training or other weight bearing exercises.

(Tai Chi has many other energetic benefits, though, which are beyond

the scope of this article.)

What's missing from all diets

The bottom line is if you are attempting to lose weight, or more

specifically to lose body fat, then engaging in some form of

strength training is crucial to your success. I know there are a lot

of books out there that say well, you can just change your foods, or

you can consume this one particular food like grapefruit or cabbage,

or you can go on the popular low-carb diet. I know some people have

success with that, but I think the vast majority of people don't

really meet their weight loss goals just by changing their foods.

What's missing is that body component, the strength training, the

movement, the flexibility, and also the cardiovascular training.

What I'm suggesting is that you seriously consider finding a way to

get some form of strength training into your life. It could be as

easy as buying a floor mat or a DVD video on Pilates. Those videos

are as little as $15 or $20. So your total investment, including the

mat, could be only $40 or $50. And then you can engage in strength

training.

But the catch is that you actually have to do it -- right? That's

the catch. People want a system that requires no effort. Sure, we

all want that. I've even written a book on this called The 5 Habits

of Health Transformation -- you'll find that at truthpublishing.com -

that lists the 5 most effective health strategies that require the

least amount of effort. And people have been downloading that book

like crazy! It's been a huge hit, because people want to know what's

going to give them the best results for the least amount of time or

money or effort. I think it's been successful because everybody's so

busy these days; they really want the most effective and high impact

strategies. But the point is, none of this is going to happen for

you automatically. You can't just buy a Pilates video and gain

muscle mass; you actually have to do it.

Some of these Pilates moves, when you get into the advanced stages

of it, are not so easy. You know, lifting weights, even just for 15

seconds with high intensity, isn't always easy, either. When I do

it, sometimes I feel like I'm about to pass out. It's such high

intensity. When I do a leg press with a 15 second high intensity

static contraction system -- and I'm really not even anywhere near

what some of the founders are -- I'm pushing at least 1500 lbs. I'm

out of breath after that. I'm wiped out. This is hard stuff! It

takes effort.

None of it is going to happen automatically, and if you whip through

a strength training routine, and you don't feel like you've done any

work, then you probably haven't. You're not going to get any benefit

from that. At some point, it's going to require some effort to get

these results. A lot of the information out there that claims you

can lose weight without any effort is just flat out wrong.

Certainly, there are some shortcuts. There are some strategies that

can make it a lot easier for you, no doubt about that. There are

some nutritional supplements that can help -- I agree. But the

bottom line is, if you don't engage the physical body, if you don't

do some strength training and some cardiovascular training, you're

not going to get the results you want.

Finding a workable system

Most people who are really committed to losing body fat are okay

with the effort part. That hasn't been the problem. The problem has

been finding a strategy that really works. What's a system that

works? People tried the Atkins Diet or the low carb diet, and for

many people that didn't work. People tried the low fat diet years

ago -- well that didn't work, because everybody just loaded up on

carbohydrates and cookies. People tried all kinds of other things --

they tried stimulants, things that make you shake all day long

because you have a lot of caffeine in your system. And gee, they

found out that didn't work either, because it just made them

hungrier.

So, typically, it's not the effort that stops people. It's the

reliability of the system. Finding out what really works is the

hardest part. Unfortunately, this particular narrative here isn't

about food strategies that work for dieting, although I have many --

those that I've used and those that I've shared with others have

really worked well. I'll be sharing those in another segment or

another book.

But I can tell you that no system will work without the physical

body movement component. You've got to engage in strength training,

you've got to engage in cardiovascular exercise, even if it's just

walking for 5 minutes a day. If you can't walk, even just lifting

your arms for 10 minutes a day, or lifting a 1 lb dumbbell over your

head 50 times will benefit you. I don't care what it is, if you can

move something, then you can engage in cardiovascular exercise.

There is no excuse, unless you happen to be paralyzed from the neck

down, in which case obviously you can't engage in strength training.

But for everybody else, there's no excuse. If you can move a limb,

you can do this.

Find a way to start strength training today, and your body will

immediately start showing results.

Overview:

Why weight loss requires strength training, even in women and seniors

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