If you are trying to lose weight, you should incorporate strength training for weight loss into your exercise routine. If cardio exercises are all you do to lose weight, you won’t achieve your weight loss goal in the quickest and most efficient way.
And you can’t achieve overall balance in your muscles or a toned and lean look. Nobody wants to lose weight only to find that they still don’t like what they see in the mirror due to the flabby, loose skin often left behind. This can be avoided when you tone your body at the same time and pace as you are losing weight.
A balanced routine of cardio and strength training can achieve your desired effects faster than using either one exercise form exclusively.
A good number of health experts agree that losing one to two pounds per week is the best way to permanently lose weight. Weight loss that happens too quickly, especially when done with fad diets and supplements, rarely has a long lasting effect.
When you lose weight slowly, you are not just dieting, you are making a lifestyle change and creating good eating and exercise habits that will last a lifetime.
Incorporating strength training for weight loss can make this process even more long lasting because you will be building essential muscle mass (not excess weight) that actually speeds up your metabolism and assists your body in getting rid of fatty cells, as well as gives you the energy to continue with your exercise program. Eventually your body will feel as if it needs to do the strength training to feel good, and that is a great thing!
Cardio exercises are great for the heart and should be a major part of your exercise routine. But cardio exercises won’t tone or add lean muscle mass, which is essential in maintaining optimal health.
Not only is it healthier to add lean muscle mass but it looks healthier than flabby skin. Yes, muscle does weigh more than fat, but it takes the human body almost ten times as much time to gain a pound of muscle as it does to lose a pound of fat.
To put this into perspective, if you lose 50 pounds of fat in the next year, but gain 5 pounds of muscle, you will only have actually lost 45 pounds, but you will look so much better with the added, toned muscle than you would without it.
You can do strength training for weight loss alone and not the cardio exercises and still lose weight, just as you would if you only did the cardio exercises. If you prefer the strength training, or if there is a medical reason that your physician doesn’t want you to do too much cardio exercises, then by all means just do the strength training.
If you are pressed for time work your muscles first. You can combine them by performing your exercises back to back in a circuit workout and that way your work your muscles and your heart at the same time. It’s much more efficient and produces long lasting results.
Any exercise is certainly better than no exercise at all. Just know that you won’t lose weight as quickly as combining the two, and you probably won’t lose as much weight with strength training alone. As with any exercise program, a balanced diet, plenty of fluids, and a good amount of sleep are essential in achieving the desired results.
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