Weight Training, Why it is the "King" of all fat burners?

How am I able to maintain a 4% body fat and eat 3500 calories a day?  Most people think that it is just easy for me, and that is not true.  I can gain body fat very easily, just like anyone else.  I actually used to be 18% body fat.  I have to eat clean foods, eat smaller more frequent meals, do some cardio, and lift lots of weights.  Now, not everyone will be able to maintain low body fat with 3500 calories, but let me explain how this works.

Most people that decide it’s time to drop some fat go on a diet and maybe throw in a little exercise.  After all, you do have to burn more calories than you take in to lose body fat.  3500 calories equals 1 pound of fat.  That means that you need to take in about 3500 calories less than you burn to drop 1 pound of fat.  So, then it would make sense that the lower you can drop your calories and the more you exercise the faster you will drop body fat – right.  Wrong, it is not quite that simple.

The problem with this reasoning is that the lower you drop your calories the slower your metabolism becomes.  When you do not feed yourself enough calories your body goes into starvation mode, were it wants to hold on to the energy that you eat instead of burning them.  Your body wants to save or conserve everything that it gets because it knows that it is not getting enough.  Also, what most people don’t realize is that you will actually lose muscle as well.  Because of the lack of calories your body goes into a catabolic state, were your body uses some muscle for fuel.  You may drop some weight – though some of that weight will be muscle. 

Each pound of muscle burns 30 – 50 calories a day.  So, if you lost just 5 pounds of muscle from dieting, than you would be burning about 200 calories less a day.  Add that number to an already  very slow metabolism due to putting your body into a starvation/ conserve mode.  This is why most diets are hard to stick to, but also hard to have long term success with.  Your body starts to burn so little that you have to eat like a bird to keep loosing or maintain.  This is also very unhealthy because your body is not getting enough nutrients. 

That is why it is better to focus on a plan to increase metabolism, not decrease it.  Yes, you will still have to drop calories down – but you do not want to drop them to much.  You also want to eat smaller, more frequent meals.  If you continue to feed your body often your body will not hold on to the calories or fuel, but burn the fuel because it knows that more fuel is continuing to come.  Also, by doing this your body will not lose muscle.  Now the best way to further increase your metabolism  is to lift weights.  Lifting weights not only burns good calories while you do it, but is also the best way to give your metabolism a boost.  After an intense weight training session, your metabolism can stay elevated for close to 40 hours after your workout.  Weight training can increase your metabolism by 15%.  Then in the long run you will add muscle witch will further increase your metabolism.  Remember, each pound of muscle burns 30-50 calories a day.

Many woman are a little afraid to lift weights because they think that they will get bulky and look like a guy.  That is simply not true.  Most woman that are not taking artificial substances will not gain a lot of muscle weight, because there bodies do not produce enough testosterone to do it.  Doing some weight training will help your skin stay tighter as you lose weight, make you look more toned, increase bone density, and actually make you look smaller.  If you could just gain 5 pounds of muscle you would burn an extra 200 calories a day.  Now compare that to losing 5 pounds of muscle due to normal dieting – that’s a 400 calorie a day difference.   Now add an already faster metabolism due to not dropping calories to low and eating small frequent meals.  Now add another 15% boost in metabolism due to weight training and you will see a big difference.

Also, muscle is much smaller than fat, and that is why you should be smaller for doing weight training – unless you gained a lot of muscle.  The picture shows 5 pounds of muscle vs. 5 pounds of fat.  So, if you only exchanged 5 pounds of fat for 5 pounds of muscle you can see how you will be much smaller.  Now if you gained that 5 pounds of muscle and that helped you lose lot’s of those 5 pounds of fat than you would be much smaller.