From time to time, folks will express variations on the theme of, “I want to lose weight, but won’t lifting weights make me get bigger?”
I’m not going to argue all that vehemently with someone with so many letters after their name, but I do see some holes in Dr. Heaner’s essay on this topic that bear a bit of examination. In the main, she makes a lot of good points, and, given how vague the user query she’s working from is (we don’t even know the gender of the person asking the question), it’s hard to make any kind of concrete recommendations.
However, even bringing up the subject of resistance training (yeah, it’s a fancy term for “lifting weights” for people harboring unpleasant connotations with the latter) is something that might give folks pause. “Weightlifting” isn’t a bad word, and it might help get you where you want to go.
First, let’s revisit Dr. Heaner’s inquiry:
Q: I’m overweight. When I lift weights to try to lose weight, not only do I not lose weight, people tell me that I look heavier. I thought that weight lifting is supposed to help me shed body fat? What am I doing wrong?
Dr. H gently but adroitly points out a couple things that anyone who has gone to the gym with the intention of spending a few weeks to do the Charles Atlas transformation from 98 pound weakling into mini-Governator already know: “It’s not that easy to build lots of muscle, unless you’ve been at it for a long time… Not only do you have to eat more [protein] than you normally do to build muscle mass, you also need to lift a serious volume of weights (lots of sets and reps with heavy weights). Even if you do so, it’s tough to gain a lot of muscle.”
Building muscle is hard work. It doesn’t happen overnight, it doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen in dramatic quantities without a whole lot of time and effort. In the year I’ve been lifting weights fairly vigorously, I think I’ve gained maybe five pounds of muscle, and I’m trying to. Competitive powerlifting and the whole assortment of “World’s Strongest Man” contests have more in common with professional golf than with many of the other major sports in that competitors are in their best physical condition in their mid-30′s, as opposed to their early and mid-20′s. That’s an extra ten years’ worth of effort and development, primarily spent building muscle (and honing technique, of course).
Unfortunately, not all of her advice is as good. “Fat doesn’t just start melting off once you start weight training.”
This is where the oft-heard refrain of the ‘tubes can echo across the digital wastes: “If that’s the case, you’re doing it wrong.” In slightly more helpful terms, there are a lot of ways that lifting weights in addition to, or in lieu of, traditional steady-state cardio will help you lose weight. In the most basic sense, anything you do that engages your muscles and makes them work burns calories. The harder they work, the more calories they burn. Also, the harder they work, the longer they’ll keep burning them, too, thanks to EPOC.
As far as contributing directly and indirectly to weight loss, there are a lot of things going for lifting weights — even at rest, a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of adipose tissue, so it will contribute to weight loss and the body-composition changes folks are looking for 24/7. By approaching the weight machines, dumbbells, barbells, or resistance bands with the mindset that they can, in fact, be your cardio with a little creativity, they become a whole different critter, too.
How can we perform this bit of alchemical transmutation, of iron into… ummm… non-fat? The easiest answer is “by keeping moving.” We’ve all seen those dudes who spend a lot of time standing around the gym, slapping each other on the back, and never breaking much of a sweat. They, also, are doing it wrong. If you’ll forgive a little bit of jargon, Circuits and Complexes will get the heart pumping and the muscles burning to get the scale moving in the right direction.
- Circuit: Doing multiple exercises without stopping in between. For example, a simple circuit could consist of doing a set of ten pushups, twenty situps, and ten squats before taking a short break. Circuit training was introduced in the 1970′s by the inventor of the Nautilus system, as a way to hit a lot of different muscle groups in a short period of time. It’s great for someone who is trying to squeeze in a thirty minute workout on their lunch hour. By keeping moving, either from one move to the next, or one workout station to the next, you keep your cardio up, and get to do work for each muscle group while the last one you worked recovers.
- Complex: When you pick up a weight (barbell, or pair of dumbbells, or a kettlebell, or even a bucket of kitty litter), and then don’t put it down until you finish everything you’re going to do with it, that’s a complex. The idea here is that you’re going to be working nonstop, straight through each set of exercises. One example would be to pick up a pair of barbells and do all of the following moves before putting them down again: 5 upright rows, 5 curls, 5 lateral raises, 5 overhead presses, and 5 bent-over rows. One word of advice here — be humble, and start with a weight you think might be way too light. After doing three complexes, taking only a short break between each one, your arms (and breathing) will definitely feel it.
Dr. H. also mentions the other benefits of strength training — injury resistance, stronger bones, and some other good stuff. I’ll add to that the practical considerations of simply being a little bit stronger — bringing in the groceries gets easier, and moving furniture around for a LAN party or a night of Rock Band doesn’t require a buddy’s help.
Related posts:
One of the major things to do when increasing activity is to eat more. A lot more in most peopels cases. You need to avoid “starvation mode” where your body clings to all the calories it has. You do this by eating enough to keep your body from freaking out.
Lifting tends to cause a pretty major change for most people. No lifting to even moderate lifting will cause you to sort of seize up and your body will try and hold onto all that fat. Most times if you are hitting a platue on your wieght loss/gain you need to eat more in both cases. Add more fuel and boom, you start having progress again.
I just finished a round of P90X and I was eating a 2500 calories a day. I lost 20 pounds during that 3 months and gained a ton of muscle definition.
I read a bit of a book on weight lifting that Schwarzenegger helped wright. He said, like you cited, that you need to lift like mad to gain 5-10 lbs a year. Pros will life 4-5 hours a day to get 10-15 lbs that year when competing.
I have never seen lifting hurt my weight loss. In fact, it made it better because I burned more calories and I looked better. If it was all about the weight loss then I would just starve myself until my tissues wasted away to see a low number on the scale. But it is about being healthy, fit and looking good. Lifting will always help.
I believe the key thing you’re ignoring from the article in question is that Dr. H. specifically addressed the “significantly overweight” reader in her response (50, 70, or 100 pounds overweight). The more weight you need to lose the more likely it is that you are, in all fairness, grossly out of shape. Standard “good health” guidelines suggest 30 minutes or more of activity every day, and for someone who is morbidly obese 30 minutes of circuit training or complex weight lifting is an impractical (and frankly dangerous, in my opinion) goal.
Again, not to say that you’re advice is bad at all (in fact, I switched my dumbbell routine to a complex one today)…but I think that the fact that she coached her answer from a “if you need to lose a LOT of weight” viewpoint her response was pretty dead on.
I don’t disagree, but I think that, even someone who’s very overweight and brand new to doing stuff could still benefit from adding even some light strength training to their routine.
I always incorporate weights into my fitness routines.
Keep up the great work.
M
[...] Traveler Tires of Treadmills: I need good, preferably strength-oriented workouts [to do] while traveling. Something 30-60 minutes, but whole body, not just hopping on a [...]