Lift Weights To Lose Weight

When you discover that your favorite jeans are too tight, the last thing that probably crosses your mind is hitting the weights. I get it. The common reaction to your weight increasing or your clothes getting too tight is to hit the trails, elliptical, or cardio class to get the weight off. However doing cardio to lose weight is a trap that eventually requires you to do more and more cardio just to maintain your weight.

So what is a girl to do when it is time to drop some weight and get back into the clothes in your closet? Lift weights!

3 REASONS WHY WEIGHT LIFTING ROCKS FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Reason #1: Lifting weights supports your metabolism. No more fighting for each pound.

I can remember back in my cardio queen days when I would literally be afraid to miss any cardio sessions because a few missed sessions would lead to tight jeans. The problem was I was controlling my weight by burning calories with exercise. When I couldn’t burn calories, the weight would come back. How does weight lifting fix that?

When you lift weights you either maintain or increase (depending on your program and your fitness level) your lean mass. The more lean mass you have, the more calories your body burns every day at rest. So while you may not burn as many calories in a weight lifting session as you do in a cardio session, preserving or building your muscle mass increases the calories that you burn every day WITHOUT TRYING. Since you know that a calorie deficit is required to lose weight, you can understand how valuable it is to increase the amount of calories you burn everyday outside of your exercise sessions.

Reason #2: Lifting weights creates a tight, well-shaped body rather than a squishy, smaller version of yourself.

When our jeans are tight or the scale is creeping up, we tend to focus on losing weight but at the end of the day most of us want to look firm and toned not just small. Lifting weights helps to create and maintain your body’s shape. Cardio and diet alone cannot create shape. Only weight training can do that.

Reason #3: Lifting weights increases your carbohydrate tolerance- now that rice and bread has somewhere to go besides your fat cells.

Can we just agree that if there is a way to eat more bread, chocolate or other starchy carbs and still lose weight and look great that most of us ladies want to know about it? Well here’s the secret. Lifting weights increases your carbohydrate tolerance, the amount of starch that you can eat without having it stored as fat. So incorporating weight training into your weight loss plan can allow you to hit your goals without needing to swear off some of your favorite foods.

Despite the reasons why weight lifting rocks for weight loss, you could be lifting weights and still NOT losing weight. Watch my video on HOW to lift weights for weight loss where I explain the three strategies you need to get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to lifting to lose.