Muscles demand energy just to exist -- energy in the form
of calories derived from glucose (sugar) and stored body fat.
In fact, almost 100 percent of the fat gets burned in the
millions of muscles cells throughout the body.
When we strength or resistance train, we not only burn
calories while we workout, we also increase the size and tone
of our muscles, and thereby burn more fat calories just
standing still --24 hours a day! In effect, you'll give your
metabolism a boost by increasing the amount of muscle it
must supply with fat for fuel, just to meet daily requirements.
And bulky muscles are NOT necessary to get this fat burning
boost. Simply improving muscle tone (which actually increases
muscle density without a large increase in size) will increase
your basil metabolic rate. The basil metabolic rate (BMR) is
defined as the energy requirement necessary to sustain
life when the body is at rest.
The average adult will lose twenty-five percent of their lean
muscle mass every decade after the age of thirty. Both men and
women can halt this process of losing muscle mass AND bone
density, and stave off the ravages of aging, along with the
"inevetible" weight gain. Simply perform the right exercises
(right for you), while working against a challenging level of
resistance, just two or three days a week.
Resistance exercises are traditionally weight lifting movements,
utilizing a barbell or dumbbell that is usually lifted against gravity,
through a specific range of motion.
One such example would be my all time my favorite exercise,
the simple "Squat". Squats work the entire lower body, as well as engaging
the lower back and abdominal muscles as stabilizers.
Every day we "squat" dozens of times, simply by sitting down or
rising up from a comfortable chair. It's a rather simple process to
recreate this most basic of human movements, as an all around
lower body exercise, just about anywhere. You can increase intensity
by adding some weights like dumbbells, or resistance bands, or by
altering the biomechanics of the movement itself with a stability ball
or other prop. The variations are endless with very minimal expense.
An effective fat burning workout program could never be complete
without some form of muscle toning exercises that will ulitmately
increase your overall capacity to burn fat. When combined with the
right amount of cardiovascular training, and a sensible eating program
results can be quite dramatic.
Be aware that muscle weighs more than fat, but takes up comparatively
less space. So while the bathroom scale might not indicate you've lost
weight, you can be sure that resistance exercises will increase lean
muscle mass and lower your body fat levels, as it tones and tightens.
