Weight Lifting to Lose Weight. Frustrating as it may seem, banishing extra fat isn't impossible. Study after study has shown that the clincher, after cutting back on calories, is exercise. But as you charge into the gym, don't forget to enlist one of your best fat- fighting allies: your own muscles. If you want to get into shape, aerobic workouts can't be beat for their power to tune up the heart and lungs. Aerobics will also tone the muscles you're using. But pumping iron can be another potent weapon in the battle against the bulge. Weight training will not only shore up your bones, build additional muscle mass, and make it easier to heft grocery bags or firewood, it can also help hold the line on your waistline. Lose what you don't need. If you're dieting, weight lifting can help you lose fat instead of muscle and bone. Most people don't realize it, but when they diet, only about 6. So if you shed 2. But exercise, particularly the iron- pumping kind, can preserve muscle and bone, so that up to 8. Dale Schoeller, a nutrition researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. We all tend to fatten up as we get older, and one key culprit is the dwindling of muscle mass that begins in our 2. After 4. 0, we lose roughly a third of a pound of brawn a year. And since muscle burns more calories than fat does, our metabolism slows down. In women, who start out with proportionally less muscle than men, this process takes a bigger toll on the waistline. The average female gains around 2. Weight training can also raise a person's metabolic rate for as long as 1. That means that if you lift weights, your body will burn calories faster. But whether regular exercise generally increases your metabolism over the long- term remains controversial, says Glenn Gaesser, an exercise physiologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. One study in the Netherlands found that 1. Weight training can help you build muscle. Always warm up before you start lifting weights. Weight: 132 lbs Occupation: Fitness. Maybe you've thought about lifting weights. If you're losing both fat and muscle, you can lose those lovely curves as well. Other studies haven't found such a benefit. Nonetheless, Gaesser and others believe that by maintaining muscle, weight lifting can help minimize the metabolic downturn that occurs as you get older. Here's the math: A pound of muscle burns five to 1. With a moderately strenuous weight- lifting regimen, women can gain one to two pounds of muscle after three months; men rack up about twice as much. Two extra pounds of brawn would thus consume 1. That seems like small change, but over months and years, it can really add up. Over 2. 0 years, that extra bit of muscle could keep you from putting on 2. In one study, she put 1. Both groups ended up around 1. But that wasn't the whole story. On average, the diet- only crew lost only 9. Which points up a neat thing about strength training: You may not necessarily lose more weight, but you can still gradually slim down as you trade fat for brawn. Contrary to female fears, crunching dumbbells won't turn women into the Incredible Hulk. If anything, it'll make them smaller as they replace jiggly fat with compact muscle, says Nelson. Even more gratifying, people who pump iron notice striking improvements in strength fairly quickly, giving them more stamina for walking or biking. Two more major long- term bonuses, especially for older women: You get stronger bones and better balance. Getting going. Based on her research, Nelson lays out a program of diet plus aerobic and strength exercise in her book, Strong Women Stay Slim, and on her Web site, Strong. Women. com. The regimen has won glowing praise from readers. One 4. 9- year- old battled weight all her life until she tried Nelson's plan a few years ago. I have run and done aerobics for years, and nothing compares to weight lifting! For those people, it's helpful to remember that any kind of exercise will earn you a big payoff - - in better health. Working out can do more than improve strength and endurance; it also helps to lower blood pressure and cholesterol and stave off diabetes. Even strength training can help protect the heart, though to a lesser degree than aerobic exercise. And perhaps most important, staying active will do wonders for your self- confidence. As Gaesser puts it, exercise simply makes you feel good. To get started, Nelson recommends doing five essential weight- lifting exercises three times a week, and walking or biking at least three times a week. Can't fit all that exercise into your life? Check out Gaesser's book, The Spark. Breaking up your workout time into 1. References. American College of Sports Medicine. Simon and Schuster, 2. Nelson, Miriam E. Strong Women Stay Slim. Bantam Books. Votruba, S. G. 1. 6. Van Etten, L.
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