When you exercise, you burn calories and that can cause you to lose weight, but does it cause you to lose fat? Not necessarily. Some aerobic exercises, such as running long distances, burn tons of calories, but those calories come from burning both fat and lean muscle tissue. If shedding fat is your goal, that simply won’t help. What does help burn fat? Strength building exercise helps burn fat. When you do strength training, you’re burning a lot of calories, but you’re also building muscle. That means the calories are coming from fat.
Strength training also does more to help you shed fat.
Muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does, so the more you have, the more calories you burn. Not only will you maintain and build muscles as you burn fat, you’ll boost your metabolism to help you burn even more calories. That means that it helps you lose pounds, by burning fat, but also keep pounds off in the future.
The amount of time you exercise affects fat loss.
You probably think that more is better and a long workout is best, but you’d be wrong. You need to workout hard when you workout and push it as far as you can with shorter breaks. You can increase the amount of weight you lift to make it harder, rather than increasing the length of time you spend. Once you workout an hour, studies show the benefit of the workout drops dramatically and subjects you to the potential of muscle damage from injury.
Don’t forget about healthy eating.
Eating healthy not only helps you lose weight by controlling caloric intake, it helps you build muscle tissue. Protein is ultimately important if you want to build muscle tissue. Animal sources for lean protein include chicken, beef, fish and turkey. Plant sources include beans, tofu, nuts or seeds. You can boost the benefits of plant protein by fermenting seeds before using them for baked product or cereals. Soaking them or sprouting them also helps.
- If you’re trying to lose fat, don’t worry about the scales if you’re eating healthy and working out. A cubic inch of muscle tissue weighs more than a cubic inch of fat, so you may be burning fat and replacing it with muscle, but the scales won’t show any weight loss. Track loss of inches.
- Make sure your diet has adequate protein. Protein makes you feel fuller so you won’t eat as much or as often. It also takes more calories to burn. You need protein to build muscle tissue, too.
- Besides exercise, don’t forget about hydration. If you’re dehydrated, even slightly, you’ll have less energy and burn fewer calories. The next time you get tired, don’t grab a cup of coffee, but get a bottle of water instead. You’ll be surprised at how it energizes you.
- Getting enough sleep is also important for shedding fat. While you sleep, the body converts fat to energy. You’ll be able to work toward your maximum potential. Sleep also balances satiety and hunger hormones. Adequate sleep means you won’t get hungry as often.
For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy
