Why Weight Training can Help You Lose Fat

Let me start by saying that I have been physically active for most of the last 17 years, with a couple of years off here and there. I have run half marathons, spent hours on treadmills and exercise bikes, swam lap after lap in the pool and, as an afterthought, lifted weights. I have mainly concentrated my efforts on cardio, because that is what many professionals recommend. The problem is, up until recently, I was still 50 pounds overweight.

That's right. All that cardio, and still overweight. Now, to be fair, I was not as overweight as I was when I was doing nothing at all, so I won't say I have not benefited from cardio at all. But it certainly has not kept me slim and trim.

Recently, I started focusing my efforts more on weight training. The difference to me has been amazing! I have lost 25 pounds so far and have kept that weight off for several months. My diet has remained largely the same as at other periods when I focused more on cardio.

I was curious as to why that was, so I did a bit of research. It seems that, after all, weight training can actually be a more efficient way to lose weight than cardio. The reason I found was that while weight training, your body is burning calories, often as many or more than when you do cardio. The real difference though, is after. Weight training raises your metabolism so that you continue to burn calories even when you are done. This is not true of cardio, where you burn x amount of calories, and that is about all (The exception I will add is high intensity training, but that is a different story and is not the traditional cardio we are all used to).

I don't think this is a real secret or breakthrough, it's just something that goes against what we are normally taught about weight loss and exercise. Body builders have obviously known this for years.

Still, I think a lot of people out there are misinformed on this topic, so I decided to write this blog in the hopes of clearing up some of that misinformation. I will post a few articles as I find them and do some reviews of some of the programs that are out there that focus on this.

Hope it helps you out!