How Adding Weight Training Enhances Fat Loss Success

If you’re currently getting started into fitness and beginning your running routine to help lose weight, you might just want to give some consideration to adding weight training into the mix as well.

While running is certainly a good way to help burn fat and achieve success, weight training adds a little extra fire-power to your fat burning capabilities.

Curious to know why?

Here is how weight training will help improve your fat loss rate.

The Post-Workout Calorie Burn

The first reason that strength training is so effective in improving your speed of fat burning is because after an intense workout session, you will continue burning up calories for hours at an elevated rate.

Basically, if you do a fast paced circuit training program, lifting a weight that really challenges you, you can expect to burn more calories for up to 48 hours after the workout.

So let’s say you increased your resting metabolic rate from a burn of 65 calories per hour (which is a normal sedentary rate) to 75 calories per hour. Now, a 10 calorie increase may not seem like much, but over the course of 48 hours, it now becomes 480 calories.

Since there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, this means that after doing just 7 of those strength training session, all other factors being equal, you will have burnt off one more pound of additional body fat – without doing any further exercise.

And this doesn’t even take into account the calorie burn you get during the workout as well.

Both strength training and running training will help you burn calories faster as you do the exercise. But, with the exception of sprint running training, it’s only strength training that will help to ensure you continue to burn calories while at rest.

This post-workout elevated metabolic rate is the primary reason that strength training is the most superior form of fat loss training.

The Lean Muscle Mass Implications On Metabolic Rate

Second, another way in which you will see improved fat loss results from strength training is the fact that if you do go on to build more muscle mass, you will see a permanent increase in your metabolic rate.

Basically, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn daily – period. No exercise, no dieting, no nothing. You just burn more.

This is also why many men can seem to eat anything in sight without gaining weight while some women just need to look at food and it’s like it goes straight to their hips.

Men, on average, have more lean muscle mass and this means their body burns up more calories at rest. So when they eat food, they have a lower chance of converting it to body fat stores.

Therefore, if you build muscle mass through weight lifting, you too can see this same benefit.

The Insulin Sensitivity Factor

Finally, the last way in which strength training will ensure you burn fat faster than ever is because it will boost your insulin sensitivity levels.

This refers to how well your body handles the carbohydrates that you consume. Those who have good insulin sensitivity levels will utilize the carbohydrates as a fuel source for exercise or convert it into more lean muscle mass (which as you learned above is a very good thing).

Those who have poor insulin sensitivity on the other hand, will be more likely to convert any carbohydrates they consume directly to body fat stores. In addition to this, they’ll also be at a much higher risk of diabetes as well.

Strength training is great for not only improving your body composition, but significantly increase your health status as well. In addition to protecting against diabetes, you’ll also boost heart health, improve bone strength, and enhance circulation as well.

So hopefully you can see just why it is so beneficial to add strength training to your fitness plan. Don’t think that you need to spend hours and hours in the gym to benefit either. You can simply add in small challenges such as Zen Lab’s 200 Squats Challenge or try out their Abs Trainer or Butts Trainer to firm up these areas.

Or, go full speed ahead and start up a full body workout session done two to three times per week. This should only take about a 30-45 minute time investment and you will be well on your way to seeing results.

What are your favorite weight exercises? Any specific ones that has given you great results? Share in the comments below!