This should put Sleepaholic's fears to rest?

Lift weights to lose weight
While increasing muscle mass will boost your weight, it also helps your body to burn fat faster. By Wei Koh

IT SEEMS to fly in the face of common sense, but talk to any top trainer and he will stress that lifting weights is integral to any fat-reduction routine. Aerobic exercises alone won't do the job.

Mr Dean Chee, head trainer at Club Oasis, at the Grand Hyatt, Singapore, explains: 'Building muscle is key to losing fat because the faster you put on muscle, the faster you will burn fat. This is because increasing your muscle mass will also increase your metabolic rate.'

While aerobic exercises help to burn calories, building muscles will help to keep the calories burning even when you're resting.

Fat loss occurs by a combination of two processes. The first is cardiovascular exercise combined with a reduction of calories. This causes your body to burn the stores of fat around your waist.

But at the same time, you need to lift weights to promote the underlying muscularity of your body.

Trainer Martin Koh of Fitness First, at the Paragon, explains: 'Without strength training, you will not be able to sculpt your body into an ideal muscular form.'

But what about the common concern of putting on too much muscle bulk? No fear, says Mr Chee, because 'it takes an inordinate amount of effort to build very large muscles'.

Normal strength-training will sculpt and define, but never give you Hulk-like proportions.

Mr Chee says an ideal fat loss programme should consist of six days of activities, divided into three cardio days and three strength-training days, arranged to alternate.

The cardio days can consist of anything from walking to stair-climbing to kickboxing. Strength-training days take place in the gym with you lifting weights.

Initially, you will lose fat at an accelerated rate and will be pleased to see the numbers on your scale sliding south, but they might start to increase as you build muscles.

This can be a source of misunderstanding and frustration for many.

'One of the greatest mental blocks people often face when losing fat is they can't understand why the weight on their scales increases,' says Mr Chee.

'I have many women clients, in particular, who just can't accept that as they lose fat, the numbers on the scale get higher.'

He explains that even women who focus on aerobic exercises like kickboxing will usually gain weight due to better muscle tone in their shoulders, arms and legs.

'All their friends will tell them that they look great, healthier, slimmer and so much more toned, but they will still be frustrated by the numbers on their scale.'

The lesson, then, is to retain lean muscle and reduce body fat. Strength-training inspires muscle growth which will increase your lean body weight, which in turn will affect your basal metabolic rate. So the more muscles you have, the more calories you burn.

Mr Koh says: 'Women should bear in mind that the ideal female form has changed. The new standard involves a decent amount of muscular development.'

Take a look at Madonna's or Jennifer Garner's strong sexy bodies for evidence.

But what if you plunge into dieting combined with cardiovascular activity but skip the weight routine?

Unless you have a strong natural predisposition towards muscularity, you will get leaner and lighter but your body will lack any major form of muscular definition.

You will in fact look a bit like a long, fleshy pole. This is evidenced by the bodies of long-distance runners who eschew strength training to keep their weight at a bare minimum.

These athletes, while in mind-blowing cardiovascular shape, invariably look bird-chested and somewhat sallow.

This is far from the sculpted Da Vinci-esque form you can achieve by adding weight training to your fat-loss regime. Eventually, you may need to throw away your scales and rely on how you look - and more importantly how you feel about your body.

# posted by Shopaholic : 4:33 PM