Friday, January 10, 2014 - Day 5 of New Year's Challenge

Good Article on Training for Fat Loss:

One of the most misunderstood concepts in fitness relates to training for fat loss. In fact, most women and even some men believe that the path to a firm physique can only be a traveled by hopping aboard some sort of crazy cardio train. The idea that strength training could actually be the long-awaited answer to their pound-shedding problems doesn’t seem to carry as much weight (pun intended).

For those of us on a mission to slim down and shape up, this type of misinformation can actually prevent us from ever reaching our goals. In fact, they can spark a sort of tunnel vision that causes us to overlook one of the most the important aspects our workouts…strength training. Given the preconceived notions about training for fat loss, many of us who attend group style workouts at CrossFit Country will simply just go through the motions during the skill portion of our training regimen, focusing our attention only on the actual WOD for conditioning and cardio purposes. We may even throw in a few obligatory sit-ups at the end of our routine, for good measure. If you’re guilty of approaching a working in this manner, don’t worry…you’re not alone!

Thanks to an endless supply of long-standing training and exercise myths perpetuated by ill-informed personal trainers and fitness magazines, many of us are convinced that we can reach some sort of fat-burning “zone” and/or reap the benefits of spot reduction. Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s time to clear the air.

The amount of time you spend in the gym accounts for only a small portion of your daily caloric expenditure. Unless you’re training for several hours each day as a professional athlete, the bulk of your caloric expenditure comes from your Basal Metabolic Rate (or BMR), the amount of calories you burn each day to sustain your bodily functions. In order to increase your BMR, it is necessary to increase the amount of lean muscle mass on your body. [Insert light bulb illuminating above your head]…YUP! Increasing your lean muscle mass is most often achieved via weight training in the form of deadlifts, squats, presses, and other compound movements.

Quick fact: For every pound of lean muscle that you add, you burn approximately 50 calories more per day. (Even though math isn’t my strong suit, that still tells me that swapping out 5 pounds of fat for 5 pounds of muscle will help me burn close to 300 extra calories each day, before I even step foot on the gym floor).

Moreover, doing cardio alone will actually DECREASE your BMR over time, forcing you to do even MORE cardio to make up the difference. Talk about being counter-productive! Without weight training, you will lose the only muscle that is actually accounting for any weight loss you’re able to achieve. This revelation certainly gives new meaning to the phrase, work smarter, not harder!

Now ladies, I can almost hear your brows furrowing over the question, “Won’t weights make me bulky?” The answer, I assure you, is NO! In fact, building that much muscle mass is extremely hard to do…just ask the guy sitting next to you. It takes years and years of hard work, buckets of food and a heck of a lot of testosterone that you simply don’t have because you’re a woman! It true that weight training will add a pound or two of NECESSARY lean muscle, but that addition will pay dividends in making you even leaner and helping you to look more sculpted.

It may help to take a good, hard look at your current training regimen. Ask yourself some questions: How well is this working for me? Am I losing weight and keeping it off? Am I toning up the way I would like? If you are not satisfied with your answers, maybe it’s time to focus a bit more on the strength-based skill work portions of your workouts. Remember, the food you eat to fuel your body plays a HUGE role in this process too! 1 part CrossFit Country + 1 part Healthy Diet (Paleo, perhaps) = Recipe for Successful Fat Loss!

(Source: Training for Fat Loss by Calvin Sun)

Blog Content Written By:

Jenny Hice
Write This Way, LLC
www.writethiswayllc.com

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