140613 Using exercise to lose and maintain your weight-part three

140613 Using exercise to lose and maintain your weight-part three

“Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead… You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.” — Kathleen Norris, Writer

Increasing your resting metabolic rate means burning more calories throughout the day. This relates directly to the amount of lean muscle mass on your body. The more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolic rate is and the more calories you burn.

Muscle burns more calories than fat does and strength training keeps this metabolic process functioning at a higher rate even after the completion of the training session. Cardio training, unfortunately, does not have this effect on the body after the exercise session is finished, at least not as long as it does after resistance training.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends doing 8 to 10 strength training exercises with 8 to 12 repetitions per session at least twice a week. It is my opinion, as a professional strength coach of many years, that twice a week is not enough to increase your lean muscle mass. It may be enough to maintain what you already have and perhaps increase it a little, with the emphasis on little.

There is a premium placed on the intensity of the resistance exercise, just as it is in doing high-intensity intervals for your cardio. Heavier weight with fewer repetitions will increase your muscle mass.

This does not mean that a woman is going to be bursting out with huge muscles by using heavier weights. This is a common myth and if it were that easy to develop larger muscles, every man on the face of the planet would be muscular and huge.