Building muscle burns fat!

Most people that are interested in losing weight don’t concern themselves with building muscle. Instead they focus on performing large amounts of cardiovascular training and dieting. Although this approach is effective the results obtained can be dramatically increased if emphasis was placed on building muscle. This article discusses from a physiological perspective how building muscle burns fat and how to ensure the weight you lose is fat and not muscle.

Muscular strength and endurance are vital components of fitness. In order to achieve maximum results and build the body you desire resistance training can’t be overlooked. If your goal is weight loss then building muscle is even more critical and can greatly impact your body's metabolism. Compared to a pound of fat which burns 2 to 3 calories per day, a pound of muscle burns about 50 to 70 calories. If your goal is to lose 10lb’s of fat and replace it with 10 lb’s of muscle your body's metabolic rate would increase 500 to 700 calories a day. Considering that a pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories adding 10 pounds of muscle could result in losing a pound of fat each week.

If you have the thought in mind that weight loss is more important then improving your body’s fat composition then you should rethink your strategy. If you lose 10 lb’s of fat while gaining 10 lb’s of muscle your bodyweight remains the same but your girth measurements such as your waist, hips, and thighs, will decrease. The reason for this is that muscle is more dense then fat. In fact, fat takes up three times as much space compared to muscle. So when you lose fat and replace it with muscle the scale might say you haven’t lost weight but your tape measure will disagree.

If you are dieting and losing more then 2 lb’s of bodyweight per week chances are that a percentage of this weight loss is muscle tissue. Losing weight is great but if you lose valuable muscle tissue you run the risk of decreasing your body's natural metabolism making it harder to lose weight. If this happens you run the risk of regaining the weight lost when your diet ends.

Resistance training can be used to ensure you are not losing muscle mass when dieting. The simplest way to do this is to choose a few basic compound movements such as push ups or squats. Before starting your diet be sure to perform a muscular endurance test and record the number of push ups and squats you can do. The type of exercises and the fashion you perform them is entirely up to you just as long as it is something you can do periodically during regular training sessions. This assessment should be performed every second or third training session. The goal is not to necessarily increase the amount of repetitions you can perform but to ensure this number doesn’t decrease. This number dramatically decreases chances are you are losing muscle mass and should slow down the rate you are losing weight.

The importance of muscular strength and endurance should not be overlooked when designing a weight lose program. Building muscle increases your body’s natural metabolism and helps you burn fat more effectively then cardiovascular training and dieting alone. If you plan on losing weight it is important to ensure the weight lost is fat and not muscle. Losing muscle will hinder your ability to burn fat and sculpt the body you desire.

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