Why You Need Strength Training For Healthy Weight Loss

 

Healthy weight loss is a subject that is important to almost everybody, regardless of age, weight, or gender. Most of us fight a daily battle-- a battle to lose weight. Once in a while we win; more often than not, we lose badly. Why is healthy weight loss so difficult to achieve? Aren't our bodies designed to stay as fit as possible? This article looks at why the only lasting way to healthy weight loss is incorporating strength training into your fitness regime.

First, let's examine why so many of us are overweight. The reasons are right on top of our kitchen shelves, and in the incorrect food choices that we make. In today's world we are opting for more and more processed foods, like pasta and white bread, which are high in calories, but are almost nil in nutrients. All celebrations, like anniversaries and birthdays, are centered on consumption of rich foods, desserts, and alcohol. In fact most celebrations are incomplete without a celebratory lunch or dinner, and the mandatory cake. Secondly, due to our lifestyles, we eat when we want to, what we want to, without listening to our stomachs. When we see fat piling around our waistline, we starve ourselves in the hope that we will lose those extra pounds. In fact, we end up gaining more by putting the body into a stress or "warlike"' mode, where it prepares for food shortage by cutting back on its metabolic rate. In short, we have been abusing our stomach for years with wrong eating habits. The single biggest culprit for weight gain is what you eat.

The third reason that many of us weigh-in at more than our ideal weight is the relative inactivity of modern life. We have gadgets to do our work, domestic help to run our errands and do our chores, and we take pride in our "thinking" jobs that keep us tied to our desks and laptops all day. Cars ferry us to the neighboring grocery store, while elevators and escalators make sure we don't have to climb the stairs. With all these regular forms of exercise gone, we lead inactive lives. Add to it the lowered metabolic rate as we grow older, and we have a recipe for disaster.

To reverse the effects of years of neglect requires a two pronged approach. Restrict intake and increase outtake. This basically means that you need to spend more calories than you eat. Choosing foods with high nutrient per calories' value are a smart choice to stay full and yet reduce calories. Hitting the gym and exercising for weight loss or choosing a sport that you like is a good way to burn more calories. However, the lasting way to healthy weight loss is increasing the proportion of muscle in your body composition. Muscle helps burn fat, even while you sleep, making it the most effective way to lose weight. Only weight training for strength helps build muscle. Therefore, it is important to include it in your fitness regime for healthy weight loss.