By The answer is yes, lifting weights does help you lose weight. There is a catch though, which needs to be considered above weight training. The catch is that you must make sure your nutrition is up to scratch. Your diet must reflect one that will help you along your weight loss journey, as well as increase muscle mass.
Please remember that muscle grows when you rest, therefore training every day should not be the norm. Rest is needed for muscle protein synthesis. If you want your resting metabolism to increase, you need to have 1–2 rest days. Feel free to have these days as an active recovery. This means that you do low impact activity (such as yoga or walking etc) so you can still activate your metabolism somewhat.
In order to make sense of this, here are some following diet tips that will help you increase muscle mass and burn body fat.
5 key ways to lose body fat & gain muscle
- Eat more protein.
I cannot stress this important fact more than any other one on my list. You must eat more protein on a daily basis in order to gain muscle mass and prevent muscle from being used as energy by your body. When we diet, our energy reserves are low, and our body goes into chaos trying to find a source of sustenance for all of this abundant activity, and lack of food. Do yourself a favour, and eat more protein. Not an excessive amount, but split the quantity over 5–6 meals a day. Give your body a chance to get that fuel and shuttle it to your muscles for growth and repair, not to catabolise while you are working out. If you continue to deprive yourself or protein, your weight training and fat burning results will be an endless cycle of loss and gain. Don’t waste your time on that one. - Portion control is key.
I get so many questions regarding portion control. It seems that many people have trouble understanding how much food they really need. It’s not a matter of counting calories, but viewing the actual portions of your meals. Protein should be the size of your palm, veggies should be 2-3 cups full (green veggies) and fat should be the size of a matchbox. If you keep these visual references as guidelines, you will always stay in your chosen range. - Drink lots of water!
Aim for over 3 liters per day: Staying hydrated is the key to waste elimination and strength gain in training. Dehydration halts any muscle growth, and decreases your intensity to training. The more hydrated you are, the better your maximal strength will be, and the more intensely you will be able to train. That means a lot more gains for you! One trick to drinking more water, is to sip up to a litre in the morning, before you eat any breakfast. Make sure that you are always hydrated before you have a meal. When you sweat more during training, there will be a need for a lot more water. Herbal tea counts as water consumption. Aim to have water at room temperature, and keep a bottle with you at all times. - Eat lots of cruciferous veggies.
Kale, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower etc. Add these veggies with every meal possible. They are very high in fiber, low in calories, and create an extremely low insulin response. You can drizzle these with olive oil, some rock salt and lemon juice. They are delicious and nutritious. - Get as much fiber in your diet as possible.
Make fiber your friend every single day. Avoid cereal’s claiming they are high in fiber. All they contain is sugar & refined carbs, which elevates your insulin levels and leads to fat gain and diabetes. Fill your diet with lots of green veggies, or take a fiber supplement. Make sure you rotate the fiber supplement with a couple of different types. Your body will become accustomed to a particular mix. It’s always good to alternate every other day.
Please feel free to visit my website and download a complimentary e book on portion sizes as well as fat burning tips. This will delve into a lot more detail for you.
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