Resistance Exercise And Fat Loss

Currently, 75% of Americans are over-fat.  Americans gain weight with each decade of life. By 2030 over 50% of the American population is projected to be obese with 1 in 4 adults projected to be severely obese.  More importantly, they lose muscle with each decade of life.  The net result is a drastically weaker and fatter person – a truth that the scale fails to tell

Fat gain exists because:

1. A lack of or reduction of muscle tissue
2. A subsequent reduction of metabolism
3. Thus, fewer calories are burned
4. Thus, more fat is stored

Dieting and Aerobic Exercise alone are not an effective means for losing fat/weight because if only diet and aerobic exercise are performed 25 – 50% of weight lost is muscle.  Muscle is a person’s most important ally in the fight against fat gain because it raises metabolic rate and caloric expenditure.

Strength training contributes to fat loss in 2 ways:

1.  Strength training increases muscle tissue (chronic effect):

• Thus increases metabolism
• Increases caloric expenditure during the bout of exercise and at rest
• Thus, less fat is stored

2. Strength training the existing muscle tissue makes this tissue more metabolically active (acute effect)

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