When it comes to burning fat, most people think about cardiovascular exercise first. Even trainers and experts often focus on aerobic exercises for weight loss and think of weight lifting as something to build muscle mass. The thing that gets overlooked is the fact that lean muscle leads to a higher metabolism. The more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn. This is true even while you’re resting. The best way to lose fat is to balance a healthy diet with aerobic exercise as well as strength and weight-training.
Cardio-training raises your muscle metabolism while you exercise. Training with weights will raise your metabolism during the activity and for a long period afterward. Muscle is built during the rest periods between workouts as the muscle tissue repairs itself. It is vital to allow enough time for your muscles to recuperate. This usually takes between 1 to 2 days. Working the same muscle groups every day will actually be counter-productive to muscle growth and fat loss. You can train different muscle groups each day or spend more time on cardio and endurance on your off days. After training with weights your metabolism will be up, making this a great time to work on cardio while you’re burning calories faster than usual.
Extreme dieting might help you to lose weight quickly, but it will make you lose muscle as well as fat. This can even be true of excessive aerobic exercise. These methods have short-term benefits, but also lead to the regaining of fat down the road. The best weight-loss method involves balance. It may take longer, but the benefits will also last longer. Part of being healthy involves your functional strength and balance. These can’t be gained by aerobic exercises alone. The best you can hope for by only dieting and aerobics is to be temporarily skinny and with low functional strength. You will lose muscle and still have an unhealthy fat-to-muscle ratio. By strength-training you can become stronger, burn more calories, and sculpt your body into looking great.
