The Average Joe Fitness

I know, I know. I can hear your ques­tions and com­ments. Doesn’t mus­cle weigh more than fat? Then how can adding mus­cle help me lose weight? Adding mus­cle means I’m going to weigh more. I feel bulky as it is, I want to lose size not add size.

Let me explain, just like mus­cle tis­sue weighs more than fatty tis­sue, not all cells in the body con­sume energy, metab­o­lize calo­ries, at the same rate. Let’s start with a sim­ple look and then we’ll add more detail. Mus­cle cells are more “active” than fat cells and con­sume energy at a higher rate, even at rest.

Your Rest­ing Meta­bolic Rate (RMR) is the base amount of calo­ries con­sumed by the func­tions of the body on a daily basis. These func­tions include no other activ­ity like exer­cise or walk­ing. In order to lose weight, you have to have a deficit of calo­ries. You have to burn more than you take in. You can find a tool here to get an idea of what your RMR is.

This can be done a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent ways. You can go the diet only route which means eat­ing less calo­ries than your body needs on a daily basis. The bad news with this option is that your body does not dis­crim­i­nate when it comes to mak­ing up the dif­fer­ence in calo­ries. It will burn both fat and mus­cle for energy.

The trap that devel­ops here is that most peo­ple start a diet with the mind­set that it’s tem­po­rary. In the back of their mind they feel that as soon as they get to their goal weight, they’ll go back to enjoy­ing the foods they are cur­rently giv­ing up. By los­ing both fat and mus­cle tis­sue, they may actu­ally have a lower RMR after the weight is gone than they had before they started. If those peo­ple go back to eat­ing the way they were before, they’ll quickly gain the weight back, hence the “Yo-Yo” effect count­less peo­ple have encountered.

With the exer­cise option, you are adding activ­ity to increase the calo­rie deficit. Depend­ing on what your exer­cise con­sists of, you can still fall into the trap of the diet only option.

The other option is to have a com­bi­na­tion of a meal plan (a method of eat­ing healthy that is not tem­po­rary and will help you lose weight with­out feel­ing like you are sac­ri­fic­ing) and exer­cise which includes some level of weight train­ing, exer­cise to add mus­cle. Now, when I say add mus­cle, I don’t mean get bulky. I talk of adding lean mus­cle. Lean mus­cle may weigh more than fat, but it is not as bulky. Also as you burn that fatty tis­sue and add mus­cle in its place, you can increase your Rest­ing Meta­bolic Rate.

If you’ve never done any kind of weight train­ing before, I wouldn’t rec­om­mend hastily pick­ing up weights and doing some form of exer­cise. That’s how you injure your­self and do more harm than good. Do research and find the types of exer­cises that will help you. Start with a weight that is right. Ran­domly pick­ing a weight or one that is rec­om­mended by a friend is not a good idea. It may be a good idea for you to pick some­thing lighter and see how your body responds. Lean mus­cle is built through less weight and more reps. If you do less reps with more weight, you’ll get bulky.

The one thing I’ve learned over the years is this process takes more than just effort, it takes time. Get­ting fit and stay­ing fit is a jour­ney, not a destination.

Related Posts:

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• Cre­at­ing a Diet Rou­tine to Gain Muscle
• The Essen­tials on Rheuma­toid Arthri­tis and Weight Loss
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