If you want to lose fat, you have to do strength training. It is a very powerful fat loss tool.
And not just for the reason you think.
Everyone thinks about how many calories exercise burns—and it does! Strength training workouts will burn several hundred calories, which directly contribute to fat loss.
Because what’s the only way to lose fat consistently over time?
By creating a calorie deficit, which means eating fewer calories than you burn each day. So if you start strength training and burn some extra calories from that, you’ll lose fat faster.
But what if I told you there were 6 ways strength training contributes to fat loss that might be even MORE effective than just burning extra calories during the workout?
Here are the 6 ways strength training indirectly contributes to fat loss:
- More Muscle Equals Higher Metabolism
- You Feel Better and Move More
- Better Sleep
- Reduced Inflammation and Stress
- Better Nutrient Partitioning
- A Healthier Gut
More Muscle Equals Higher Metabolism
Strength training is hands down the best way to build muscle. And when you carry more muscle, you burn more calories at rest.
This means the person who strength trains burns more calories sitting on the couch than the person who doesn’t strength train.
And more calories burned throughout the day means more fat lost!
You Feel Better and Move More
One of the first things our newest clients report is feeling better and having more energy. Feeling better and having more energy is a worthy goal itself, BUT it also means you’re going to move more throughout the day naturally.
Moving more throughout the day means you’re increasing your NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Time). The crazy thing is you can burn way more calories by increasing NEAT throughout the day than you would in an intense 1-hour cardio session.
And the best part is this is all happening without much effort from you. You aren’t having to TRY to get more activity throughout the day—you just do because your body feels better. And a body that feels good WANTS to move!
Better Sleep
The very first thing we hear from most new clients is that they sleep better—literally after their first strength training workout. And some of those clients have struggled with sleep for years or even decades!
Did you know even if you’re doing everything right (strength training, walking, eating in a calorie deficit, etc.), poor sleep can seriously sabotage your results?
It’s true!
While you can still see great results even if you have trouble sleeping, the reality is poor sleep leads to worse fat loss results.
Which means if we get you sleeping better as a result of strength training, your body will start burning fat more easily! Not only that, but you’ll likely feel better and have more energy. And as we already discussed, that speeds up fat loss.
Reduced Inflammation and Stress
So many Americans are dealing with chronic inflammation and chronically elevated stress levels.
In the short term, inflammation and stress are beneficial in the right dose. For example, exercise actually increases inflammation and stress in the short term, but soon after the workout, they go back down. In fact, strength training is one of the best ways to regulate chronic inflammation and stress in the body.
When it comes to fat loss, chronic inflammation and elevated stress levels can sabotage results in two ways.
First, they can reduce your metabolic rate over time. Sometimes this impact is minor, but in some situations, it can be significant.
Second, the more inflamed and stressed you are, the worse you feel—and the worse your cravings become.
And we know what happens when you’re craving junk food and feeling terrible. Your activity levels go down, and your food choices get worse.
This creates a negative spiral: you feel worse, so you eat worse and move less, which makes you feel even worse, leading to even more sedentary behavior and poor food choices.
One of the best ways to break this cycle and reduce chronic inflammation and stress is strength training.
Like I mentioned earlier, strength training temporarily increases stress hormones and inflammation, but those levels quickly come back down, helping the body regulate them long term.
Reducing inflammation and stress will make fat loss much easier.
Better Nutrient Partitioning
Nutrient partitioning is the physiological process that determines how consumed nutrients—like proteins, fats, and carbs—are allocated toward bodily functions such as building muscle, immediate energy use, or fat storage.
Strength training is one of the best ways to improve your body’s nutrient partitioning.
All things being equal, the person who strength trains is less likely to store food as fat and more likely to use it for building muscle or for glycogen storage (which is how the body stores carbohydrates for later use).
Now, obviously, if you eat poorly and consume too many calories, this won’t override that. However, strength training helps ensure your body uses every bite of food as effectively as possible and stores as little of it as fat as possible.
A Healthier Gut
Strength training has profound impacts on the gut microbiome.
Everybody talks about healing your gut, and most of the time they focus on food. However, many people overlook just how powerful exercise is in aiding this process.
Most of our clients find that after a few weeks of strength training, their food cravings go way down—or even disappear completely. They begin craving healthier, more nutrient-dense foods that keep them full and give them energy for longer with fewer calories.
There’s likely a psychological component here too, which would be just another way strength training contributes to fat loss. But wanting to eat healthier isn’t just psychological. There are real physiological changes in the gut that influence what foods you desire.
If your goal is to lose fat, you absolutely need to be strength training.
Not only does strength training offer a whole host of benefits that help you look, feel, perform, and be healthier—it also makes fat loss much easier.
If you’re ready to start your strength training journey so you can lose fat more easily, join my 12-week program today.
Just Click Here and fill out the form.
Our 12-week program is completely customized to each individual and includes everything you need to see great results: personal training, nutrition coaching, a walking/cardio plan, and consistent coaching and accountability every step of the way.