Cardio Training vs. Weight Training

MUSCLE MASS MATTERS. A LOT.

Do you like walking up stairs on your own or would you rather take one of those home stair lifts? Have you seen one of these things?

First you have to wait for the lift to ever-so-slowly make its way down the stairs. Then you get in it and slowly go up the stairs.

I tried it once with my pet turtle Herb. Herb jumped off half way up. He didn’t have the patience and decided to walk up the stairs.

On a more serious note: For a while, I researched treatments for muscular dystrophy, a disease that causes severe muscle loss. Do that kind of research for a day or two, or talk to people with muscular dystrophy, and you’ll quickly recognize the vital importance of maintaining muscle, even if your goal is to lose weight.

My biggest peeve in the weight loss industry is that weight loss is the measurement for success. For example, here are some other ways to lose weight:

1. Amputation.
2. Osteoporosis.
3. Stomach flu (though intestinal parasites will do in a pinch).
4. Coma.
5. Chemotherapy.
6. Shaving all your hair off.
7. Lobotomy.

Thanks, but I’ll pass on all of those.

Muscle helps you walk up and down stairs and pick up a soup can. And, of course, keeping you moving is muscle’s most important function.

But muscle can also help you lose fat and stay lean.

MUSCLE METABOLISM

Increased basal metabolism is probably the most obvious advantage of having more muscle. Actually, to be more exact, the more muscle you carry, the higher your resting energy expenditure (REE).

Since REE is the biggest part of your total energy use in a given day, it can change how many calories you burn [1] .

Have you ever wondered why muscle uses energy when you’re doing absolutely nothing? Seems like a waste.

Well, muscle is always up to something. It’s constantly being broken down and re-constructed, or synthesized. In fact, all tissues, to one degree or another, are constantly being remade.  It takes about seven days to completely regenerate your skin, and seven years to replace every cell in your skeleton [2].

What makes muscle special is that you can make more of it – a lot more. In other words, unlike bone and skin cells, muscle generation is, to some extent, within your control. Whereas after puberty, you can’t make a lot more of other tissue. Except fat.

The moral of the story? Throw away your scale (or at least hide it for awhile.)

Generally, you don’t need to convince men to gain muscle, but women tend to be more concerned about getting “too big.”

Here’s why women should gain muscle.

LOSE WEIGHT THE EASIER WAY

Here’s a familiar scenario. In January, Jane and Bob agree to lose weight – together. Jane watches what she eats, counts every calorie, and spends hours on the treadmill every day. After a month, she’s down by a pound.

Meanwhile, Bob decides to drink less soda and manages to cut down to one can a week from his usual four. He gets to the gym when he can – maybe three times a week – but half the time, he ends up cutting his workout short. One month of this, and he is ten pounds lighter!

What the heck? Why does this happen? (I can hear women around the world gnashing their teeth from here.)

There are many physiological reasons, but the difference in their muscle mass is one of the biggies.

Let’s compare two women. Jane and Mary both have the same amount of fat, but Mary has an extra 7 kg (15 lb) of muscle.

If, for one year, Jane did exactly what Mary did to maintain her weight– snowboarding, sleeping, swearing in six languages, whatever – Jane would actuallygain 8.5 kg (18.7 lb) of fat, increasing her body fat percentage to 35.8%. Just because of the differences in their resting muscle mass.

The other thing you might notice is that since Mary has more muscle and weighs more overall, despite having the same amount of fat, she actually has a lowerpercentage of body fat.