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STRENGTH TRAINING AND WEIGHT LOSS

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Do you want to dramatically increase your chances of weight loss success? Of course you do! Who wouldn’t? And while you are at it become stronger to do activities of daily living with more ease then ever? Yep! The answer to this is strength training.

We talk to a lot of people who are either struggling to lose weight or have hit a plateau in their weight loss but are afraid to incorporate strength training into their routine out of fear that it will make them gain weight. This is especially true with women.

Let me give you the run down on why we believe strength training is a MUST if weight loss is your goal. (We actually believe that strength training is a must no matter what your goal is but let’s focus on the goal of weight loss.)

Strength Training Increases Your Metabolism

Your metabolism is the amount of energy you burn throughout the day doing every day things. Getting ready for work, walking up and down stairs, getting up from the couch etc. Basically, it’s the amount of energy you use up outside of planned exercise. Muscle is metabolic tissue, meaning that it requires energy to work. When your muscle contracts, energy is spent. The more muscle you have and the more efficiently it works, the more energy you use up throughout the day. This in turn allows for better weight loss results. And the best way that I am aware of to increase muscle and its efficiency is through regular strength training.

Without Strength Training You May Actually Be Losing Muscle and Decreasing Your Metabolism

This is a big point. If you take the route of just dieting or dieting and doing cardio to get to your weight loss goals you could actually end up in a scenario where you could be doing more harm then good for your body long term. For every pound of weight loss, up to 25% of that could come from muscle loss. If you kept this up it would have the opposite effect on your metabolism then we want. Decreasing your muscle mass would also end up decreasing your metabolism, which then slows down your weight loss results. And what is the best way to combat this 25% muscle loss? Regular strength training of course! Strength training keeps the muscle stimulated and significantly decreases the chances of it getting broken down in the weight loss process. We want our weight loss from fat loss not muscle tissue!

Use Compound Exercises

Strength training itself burns quite a bit of energy, especially when you do it right and focus on using compound movements in your workouts. Compound exercises involve multiple joints. Think squats or push-ups versus a bicep curl or calf raise. These types of exercise recruit several different muscles which in turn burns more energy compared to any single joint exercise. Again, over time, this increase in energy expenditure adds up to better weight loss results.

How Often Should I Strength Train?

The minimum would be two times per week, ideally 3 times per week would be most beneficial. There are many different ways to structure your strength training program but however you do it just make sure that you are setting yourself up for success. If you only realistically have time for 2 sessions a week then plan for that. Don’t use a program that is set up for 5 days a week and then get frustrated with yourself because you were not able to complete all of the workouts. Consistency is the key and you want to set yourself up to stay consistent for the long haul.

Final Thoughts

One last big point is that for strength training to be effective, regardless of your end goal, it must be done with effort. You want to use enough resistance to cause what is called temporary muscle failure, meaning you couldn’t do another repetition while keeping proper form. And please make sure that you are performing the exercises correctly. Proper form is crucial to getting the most out of the exercise and to ensure that you do not get hurt.

If you have read this and you get it, great, now go out and get busy. If you are confused or still unsure of how to incorporate strength training into your routine or how to perform exercises properly, don’t hesitate to ask for help. That’s what we are here for! Schedule a free consultation with us to see how we can help you reach your health and fitness goals!

I’m Not Losing Weight! Exercise Doesn’t Work!

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You decide that it’s time. Time to make a change. You want to lose 20 or 30lbs and you know that exercise is going to help burn that fat, so you do what most do and join the gym. You start working out 3 or 4 times a week and bust your butt in the gym. A few weeks go by and you step on the scale… no change. You get discouraged and skip your next workout, then another and before you know it you have lost all momentum and the desire to even try anymore. What’s the point right? You worked hard for a few weeks and the scale showed nothing.

This scenario happens over and over and over again at the gym. Let me assure you that it’s not exercises fault.

The problem usually occurs because most of us think that exercising 3 or 4 times a week will just melt the fat away. Don’t get me wrong, exercise is a very powerful weight loss tool. We talk about that all the time and it is true. But in the grand scheme of things weight loss comes down to burning more energy in a day then you take in. A typical 1 hour exercise session with a mix of strength training and cardio will burn approximately 200 to 400 calories depending on your weight, gender and your exercise intensity. Let’s say you workout 3 times a week and burn 400 calories each session. That’s 1200 calories burned in a week. It takes about 3500 calories to make up one pound of body fat loss. So, exercise alone will not get you there.

What is almost always missing is the attention to your food intake. If weight loss is your goal and you only focus on exercise but don’t address diet you could be setting yourself up for failure. You are using exercise as your only tool, and we just showed how exercise alone leaves you short, and then you are most likely using the scale as your metric to measure success. This is the formula that is to blame for so many people giving up on their weight loss goals. It’s a cycle of hard work met by disappointment once they step on the scale to measure their success.

I won’t get in to the best ways to address your diet here because that is a whole different conversation but you can download our book Eat Smart, Eat Often, Eat Small for free above this article and learn everything you need to know.

Hopefully this gives you something to think about. We have to rethink the way we talk about exercise. The amount of health benefits that come from regular, consistent exercise is a list a mile long. Don’t stop. Just because the scale isn’t showing dramatic weight loss, don’t give up.Weight loss happens over time, not in an instant. Address the missing piece of the puzzle, your diet. Just don’t blame exercise. It does nothing but good things for you!

A Sneaky Reason We Gain Weight Over Time

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Whether you realize it or not, there are things that happen in our bodies without us knowing about it constantly. Some of it is good, some of it not so good. Today I wanted to touch on one of those things that is not so good, BUT we do have a certain amount of control over. That would be natural age-related muscle loss.

Up until we are somewhere in our 30’s, our bodies are growing muscle and getting stronger. After we get past this point it reverses and muscle begins to deteriorate and quickens as you get into your 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

This not only poses a problem because of the loss of strength and therefore your abilities to perform tasks as well as you used to, but also is a sneaky reason of why we tend to gain more weight as we age.

Muscle is metabolic tissue that requires energy to work. The more muscle you have the more energy you use up in a day. This is your metabolism at work.

As we age and we start to lose muscle, that also slows our metabolism, which means your not using as much energy as you used to going through the same daily routines. If you keep eating the same as usual, you start to gain weight. That is why it can seem like you haven’t changed anything but then all of a sudden over time you notice you are slowly gaining weight.

There is some good news though! There is a way to prevent and or slow this process down. Regular exercise, specifically strength training!

Strength training causes your body to adapt to the stress and make your muscles grow and become stronger keeping your metabolism higher. Instead of getting weaker, less independent and a slower metabolism as you age, you can get stronger, gain more independence, increase your metabolism and get or stay leaner! And you can begin at any age and still receive these benefits.

The current recommendations for strength training are only a minimum of 2 times per week so it’s a pretty low time investment for a very big return on your quality of life!

Strength training is our specialty here at G&M. If you have any questions at all about how to incorporate it into your routines, let us know, we are here to help!

Making Exercise Work

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Let’s get clear on something. Getting and staying in good shape and in good health is work. The concept is simple, exercise a few days a week, eat better, move more, but make no mistake it is not easy.

Results are not immediate and that can really test us on our journey to better health and fitness. You can’t do a workout, wake up the next day and look in the mirror and see change. Like anything worth while, you have to stay at it, work at it over a long period of time and then once you achieve your goal, you still have to continue to work at it to maintain your achievement or you risk losing it and wasting all of that time and effort to get there.

To make this exercise thing work for you it has to become part of your lifestyle. The trick is to fit it in to your life but not have it take over your life where it becomes a burden. Here are a couple tips to help you achieve this.

Plan Ahead. If you treat exercise as something that is a nice to do when you have time you will never have time to do it. You have to plan ahead and schedule time for your workouts like any other appointment you have that you wouldn’t miss. Figure out what a realistic schedule is for you to stick to and schedule it. We recommend 3 days a week but if you can only fit in 2, that is ok too. Consistency is the key so whatever amount works for you. Remember that this is a lifestyle, not a quick fix. Working out 2 days a week for the rest of your life is much better for you and will give you much better long-term results then working out everyday for 2 weeks and then quitting because it is too much.

Keep it Short. Don’t Over Commit. This is in regards to your workout time. In and out in an hour or less should be the goal. You can do everything you need to do in that amount of time. You could even get a good workout in in 30 minutes if that is all you have. The point is to not make your workouts take up too much of your day, otherwise it becomes a burden on your schedule and you will skip it.

Whatever your goal is, whether it is weight loss, strength gain, better quality of life, the results don’t happen in a moment, they come over time. The longer you stay at it, the better the results. The members that we have seen have the most success seen it come over years, with some ups and downs along the way, but they were consistently staying at it and still are today. Nobody loses 80lbs in a month, or fixes joint pain from a couple of workouts. It does take time, but if you plan ahead and keep it short, it doesn’t have to take up too much precious time and you will be far better able to enjoy more time actively doing the things you want to, for as long as you want to, because you invested a few hours a week into yourself!  

Fasted vs. Fed Cardio for Weight Loss

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I have been asked this question quite a lot over the years, if doing cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is better for weight loss.

As with most questions the answer I always give is “it depends”.

You do burn more energy from fat in a fasted state, so in theory yes, doing cardio fasted would use more calories from fat then had you ate something before your workout.

You have to also remember that weight loss occurs over time, not in a single workout. It happens from consistently repeating good habits like eating good foods in the right amounts and exercising regularly.

Exercising fasted gives a slight edge to you but it is by no means a solution for quick weight loss. You still have to follow the fundamentals.

Another interesting fact I learned a couple years ago listening to one of my favourite speakers, Dr. Len Kravitz, at a conference talk about this topic was that in his research he found that although a person exercising in a fasted state did burn slightly more calories from fat during the workout, the person who ate a small snack before exercise burned more fat throughout the entire day compared to the person fasted because eating kickstarted their metabolism sooner. He recommended eating a small snack before your morning workout.

For me there is no benefit, one over the other, it’s whatever you feel better doing. Some of us feel great working out fasted and other don’t. So, choose what allows you to have the best workout you can, whether that is fasted or fed.

If you choose to eat something, it shouldn’t be a big meal and it shouldn’t be consumed immediately before exercise. Try to eat 30-60 minutes before, and keep it small.

Diet vs. Exercise. Is Success Really More Diet then Exercise?

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Have you ever heard the phrase “weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise”, or even 90% diet to 10% exercise?

There is no doubt that diet and nutrition play a very big and very important role in our health and especially with weight loss, but I do think that the above phrase is a little misleading.

If your mindset is that the majority of your success comes from diet, you would most likely choose to just focus on diet and maybe not even incorporate exercise at all. After all, it’s only a small part of the equation.

Let me explain why I think this is the wrong way to look at this equation and why if anything, if you had to choose one aspect to focus on, I would put more weight on exercise.

If we have 2 identical people starting at the same time. They are the same weight, same height, same age, everything is identical except one will focus on getting their diet right with no exercise and the other will focus on a keeping a really good exercise schedule but will continue to eat as they normally have been.

Let’s pick a period of 3 months to check back in with them.

Who do you think feels better? Diet or exerciser?

Who do you think is stronger? Diet or exerciser?

Who do you think has gained more independence? Diet or exerciser?

Who has gained more confidence? Diet or exerciser?

Who has gained more muscle? Diet or exerciser?

Who has increased their metabolism more? Diet or exerciser?

Who has increased their performance more? Diet or exerciser?

And lastly, who has lost more weight? Diet or exerciser?

Every answer to every question I asked above, the answer is the exerciser, except for maybe the last one, who has lost more weight. That one could be toss up or lean more towards the dieter as the answer but there is one important fact you need to remember about the dieter. Since they are not exercising, specifically strength training, up to 27% of their weight loss can be from muscle loss. Not good! So again, in the long run I think the exerciser wins this answer too!

I am not pointing this out to say that diet is not important, it is very important, but only to point out that no matter what your goal is, exercise must be a part of your plan, especially the strength training aspect.

Combining the exercise and nutrition components is the secret sauce to success though. Doing both together will bring you to success much quicker. There is no doubt about that. But the bottom line here is that there are too many benefits that exercise creates that dieting alone cannot, and if you had to choose one to focus on, I would always recommend exercise.