During the Jane Fonda era, everyone focused on aerobic exercises for weight loss. While it is true that aerobic exercise uses fat as fuel, weight lifting is an essential part of a weight loss regime.

Many people undertake only one component when attempting weight loss. What I mean here is, they may take up jogging, but neglect to improve their eating choices. On the other hand, maybe they start weight training, but neglect both improvements in their eating and undertaking cardiovascular exercise.

Weight loss is a three-pronged process: weight lifting, cardiovascular exercise and healthy eating. This article will focus on the importance of weight lifting and weight loss.

If you are like millions of people, you have been concerned about your weight. You may even consider yourself to have a poor metabolism. Your metabolism is critical to your weight loss efforts. Your metabolism is an important part of how you lose your weight and how you keep it off.

Metabolism is like the motor of your body. Your metabolism is the rate at which your body uses fuel, or burns calories when you are at rest, just to maintain the regular functions of your body. Typically, people use 60-75% of their calories at their resting metabolic rate and can burn more calories if they participate in exercise or other physical activities.

However, it isn’t just the activity rates that affect your metabolism. Your muscle tissue is where the bulk of your calories are burned in your body. Unfortunately, if you are not participating in activities that will maintain your lean muscle mass, you will start to lose approximately one half pound of lean mass every year after around the age of 30.

So, the more lean muscle mass you have, the better your metabolism works, as it is burning more calories and fat just to feed your muscle.

Therein lies the reason that weight lifting and weight loss go hand in hand. If you undertake a calorie counting diet program without adding strength training, you may lose weight, however some of the weight could be muscle. Then what happens is, once you start back eating more calories, those additional calories get stored as fat because your metabolism has been negatively affected. You need the muscle!

Research has proven that this theory works. In the book Strong Women Stay Slim, the author Miriam Nelson cites a study where a group of women following a weight loss diet along with weight training exercises lost 44 percent more fat than those who only followed the diet.

In addition, weight training is essential for keeping the weight off once you have reached your goal weight. Many research studies have shown that the participants who lost weight through a combination of exercise (including weight lifting) and caloric restriction were better able to keep weight off over the long term versus those that only undertook caloric restriction.

If you are new to weight training, but are on a mission to shed excess pounds, be sure not to focus so much on the scale. Yes, the scale can help you track pounds lost, but you don’t know if those pounds are fat or muscle. A better way is to evaluate how your clothes are fitting. Muscle weighs more than fat, so you may be gaining muscle and losing fat and the scale will not tell the whole story.

Many personal trainers recommend having your body measured at the start of your program and continue measuring every week. Stay motivated by the inches lost and muscle definition you start to see. Don’t be so obsessed by what the numbers say on the scale.

Consider meeting with a personal trainer who can help you develop an all over weight lifting / strength training program to help you reach your weight loss goals. Your program should:

o target all the major muscle groups;

o vary the exercises for each of those muscle groups;

o vary the weight and intensity;

o add resistance as you get stronger;

o have plans in place to prevent plateaus.

Most trainers will recommend strength training at least every second day for maximum benefits and lean muscle building.

I hope you are now motivated to start weight lifting for weight loss. Weight lifting will give you a more sculpted appearance that will rev up your metabolism and allow you to keep the weight off that you worked so hard to get rid of! Start lifting today!

When it comes to fitness, men and women often approach it in much the same way – combining cardiovascular exercise with weight training and core work. For men, who often wish to build more muscle than their female counterparts, weight training may take a more prevalent role in their fitness routine. For women, who often wish to burn fat and create lean muscle, core work such as Pilates or yoga may take a front seat. But the one way that women’s fitness differs from men’s fitness is the accommodation for pregnancy during a workout.

There are plenty of women who choose to continue their exercise regime after discovering they are pregnant. And while exercise during a healthy pregnancy is allowed – and encouraged – it should be modified to allow for the changes happening in the woman’s body. Women’s fitness in this regard should be measured and thoughtful and always conducted under a doctor’s care.

First and foremost, you should not begin an exercise regime during pregnancy if you have not already been active. It is one thing to continue with a routine that you have been doing up until now but to jump into something with which you’re not familiar – at this vulnerable time – is not advisable. If you are normally a sedentary person – but wish to incorporate some physical fitness into your life during your pregnancy – you may want to begin with a walking regime. Walking can get your heart pumping and you can do it at your own pace – without putting undue stress on your joints.

For those who have been active in women’s fitness up until this point, and are having a healthy pregnancy, you can safely continue your exercise regime with a few moderations. Work with your doctor at all times to ensure that you are in good enough health to continue this program and to help you determine what is enough – or too much – for your body.

Doctors will generally recommend low-impact exercise during pregnancy; in addition to walking, there is swimming, and stretching exercises such as Pilates or modified yoga. The lifting of heavy weights is generally not advisable during pregnancy; nor is high impact exercise that puts stress on joints, abdominal muscles, and back muscles.

Ultimately, women’s fitness during pregnancy is about determining what is beneficial to your lifestyle at this particular time to maximize your physical and emotional health, reduce stress, and prepare for healthy pregnancy and delivery.

Body building workout routines can help women over 35 lose weight

A recent medical study involving women over 35 found that body building could actually help them lose weight. After age 35, women lose up to 5 pounds of muscle a year and begin to maintain more fat.

Body building, the researchers found, help women keep or even gain muscle allowing them to lose more fat and weight. The study found that even strenuous body building routines in middle-aged women did not make them look bulky or masculine.

The number of women using free weights in the United States doubled between the late 1980s and the early 1990s. With the news about weight lifting routines as a possible way to lose weight, more and more women are pushing iron.

Younger women who lift weights will not lose weight like middle aged women. They may even gain pounds, but the heavier muscle replacing the fat on their bodies will give them a sleek, toned look that cannot be achieved by cardiovascular exercise alone. Only body building workout routines can tone certain parts of a woman’s body.

The other benefit to women taking up weight lifting is increased strength. As a woman ages, her upper body strength tends to weaken. Great body building workout routes focusing on the upper body will help a woman stay stronger longer.

Stronger bones can be achieved by lifting weights. Women are in danger of developing brittle bones when they are older, but studies show this does not have to the case. The National Strength and Conditioning Association set exercise prescription guidelines for stimulating bone growth, which can be achieved through weight lifting workout routines. The group recommends performing 3-6 sets of up to 10 repetitions with a one- to four-minute rest between sets

Building strong muscles with weight lifting will help a young woman stay slimmer longer before she starts losing muscle tone in middle age. Get started today with body building workout routines to help you stay stronger and slimmer longer.