Fat Loss Tip #1) Train With Weights

Working out with weights when trying to lose body fat has numerous important benefits. First, an intense weight training session burns calories during the actual workout.

Second, an extremely important benefit is that intense weight training elevates your metabolism for up to 39 hours after your actual workout. In other words, because of the intense weight workout, your metabolism has been stimulated where you are now burning more calories while you are doing nothing.

Carbohydrates power intense weight training sessions. The more intense the session, the more you deplete your arbohydrate stores and the more fat is burned during the recovery phase, i.e. after the workout.

In other words, as the intensity of the training increases there is a proportionate increase in fat burning after the workout.

One study showed that 15 exercise sessions per month (50 minute sessions at 50 percent of oxygen uptake) could lead to an extra 2 plus pounds per month of fat loss, strictly from the elevated metabolism and extra calories burned - while doing nothing! That's an extra 26 pounds plus, of fat burned per year.

Another extremely important aspect of fat loss that occurs from training with weights is adding leas muscle to your body. Lean muscle is metabolically active, i.e., muscle burns calories even while doing nothing. So, the more lean muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolism and the more calories you burn each day while doing nothing.

Studies have estimated that for each pound of muscle that you add to your body, you burn another 25 to 50 calories per day while doing nothing. So, an extra 10 pounds of muscle may burn approximately 250 to 500 calories a day, or an extra pound of fat every 7 to 14 days, without making any other changes.

This is essential to taking off the fat and keeping it off. You see, when you add muscle to your body, you greatly increase the number of calories your burn each day. So, once you achieve your fat loss goals you can start eating more food without putting the fat back on, as long as you have built muscle (and keep it by continuing to train with weights)!

On the flip side, if you don't train with weights while dieting and losing weight, two very bad things will occur. First, at least half of the weight you lose will be muscle. And this causes number two, which is that your metabolism gets slower, causing progress to eventually grind to a halt, leading to gaining all the weight back and more.

But now you are even worse off before because your body composition is worse than when you were previously at this weight. You replaced muscle with fat, so now your metabolism is even slower, making it easier to gain even more fat, and harder to take it off.

As you can see, training with weights is an extremely powerful and necessary component of any successful weight loss program. Look for Part II coming soon!

Gregg Gillies is the founder of http://www.buildleanmuscle.com and the author of Get Fit Fast. He articles have appeared in Ironman Magazine and he is a regular contributor to Body Talk magazine. Check out his site on building muscle and losing fat