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Has someone ever told you how important strength training really is? This is crucial if you want to lose weight successfully and keep it off. Strength training is weight-bearing exercises, and this doesn’t have to include extreme exercises and weights where at the end of the day you look like a body builder. This just involves resistance or weight training. It is very basic.

Strength training for losing weight is crucial. You see people try to starve themselves, they think that if you can control your calorie intake you will be able to lose the weight. Even some nutritionists and dieticians don’t understand what resistance training and weightloss exercises is all about. They are convinced that it is all about calories. You will lose weight if you have calories deficits, and if you consume too many calories you will gain weight. All true, but not the full picture.

Your lean-body mass is the key. Lean body mass is the muscle found underneath the fat in your body. This muscle mass burns calories 24 hours a day. While this is continuously happening, you are able to consume more calories without gaining additional weight.

Let’s say for example you are obese and there is a somewhat high percentage of body fat on your body. Now, underneath that fat you have strong muscles and also a strong skeleton. Your body has built those muscles to help carry that fat whenever you move your body. Standing up, walking from your house to the car, going up stairs or even lifting an arm requires so much more effort when you are overweight and even more effort if you are obese. So, the fatter you are, the stronger you are, because your muscles have to allow you to do basic things everyday.

Now you can let this work for you. If you can manage to keep that bone density and muscle mass in place during your fat loss exercises then you can certainly maintain a high metabolism. If you starve yourself you are going to lose the resources you have in your muscles. Many people make this mistake, and only because they do not know. They lose the weight starving themselves, but the muscle mass disappears with it also. Why would a body rid itself of muscle mass in this situation? Because your body doesn’t require it.

Your body adapts, and it will adapt to the loads you pick up. If you are heavy and are carrying fat around, then your body will create much stronger muscles to lift that weight. If a fat person gets up from a chair, that person is doing a leg press. Think about it: a 200lb person will do a 200lb leg press each time. So if you lose 50lbs of fat, your body would not need the 200lb leg muscle to help you up. Your leg muscles will adapt to your weight.

It is important that when you lose the pounds you try to keep the muscle, because if you lose the muscle with the fat it will make it easier for you to put fat on again because your metabolism slows down.