So you have been going to your gym for two years now, and you have religiously taken the aerobics classes and hit the treadmill every couple of days in an effort to lose your belly fat for good. The trouble is, it has NOT worked. You are not noticeably thinner now than when you began. In fact, you suspect that you might even have gained some weight around the midsection. Is that possible?
It sure is. Not only is it possible, it is likely. What most people fail to realize is that low-impact cardio exercise, which elevates the heart rate, is not the kind of exercise that promotes fat loss. In fact, this kind of “endurance” activity can have the opposite effect and instead of elevating your metabolism so that you burn more calories over the course of the day, cardio exercise will reduce your metabolism, making it easier than ever to add fat every time you eat more than your body requires for its immediate energy needs. We’ll see why that might be in a moment.
In contrast to the light, stress-free form of exercising that characterizes the cardio session, strength training entails performing exercises that require a great deal of physical exertion in a fairly short amount of time. This kind of exercise stresses the body’s muscles and stimulates them to grow so as to meet the challenge then next time they are called upon. The reason why this kind of activity promotes enhanced fat burning is that it is muscle tissue that is responsible for converting your excess body fat into energy for immediate use. The more muscle you carry on your frame, the more calories you will burn every day. A pound of muscle will burn from 2 to 5 times the number of calories that a pound of fat will burn.
Cardio, on the other hand, places no real demand on the muscles of the body. So there is no resultant muscle growth. Instead, people who are advised to do this form of exercise are often told to cut back on their calorie intake too. The idea is to shave off calories through energy expenditure from physical exercise, and shave off some more in the kitchen. But whenever you decrease your calorie intake beyond a certain point it triggers a response in the body – one that results in a lowering of the metabolism. When your body is fooled into believing that food is scarce it drops its energy expenditure (making you sluggish and feeling worn out) so that it can conserve every calorie that comes its way. This means that when you DO eat more food than you need for immediate energy requirements, the excess energy you have taken in quickly gets shunted into your fat cells. You body becomes primed for fat accumulation rather than fat burning.
So do yourself a favor and add some strength training to your workouts. Ideally, replace the long cardio sessions with short sessions of exercises that stimulate your entire body. For example, learn how to perform the dead lift. This is a movement in which a heavy barbell is raised from the floor to the level of your thighs, and then lowered again. Typically you may end up lifting more than your own body weight during each movement, and it will take all the muscles in your limbs and torso to move the barbell. There is probably no better movement to stimulate muscle growth in the entire body than the dead lift.
Next, consider adding squats to your routine. For safety reasons you will probably want to use a squat rack, particularly if you are loading a lot of weight onto your barbell. Squats are great for developing the leg muscles, which are the largest group of muscles in the human body. Between the squat and the dead lift you will be well on the way to elevating your metabolism for the best possible fat burning results.
The other great thing about these full body movements is that the intense training causes the body to keep burning fat well after the workout session is over. Between this effect, and the fact that added muscle will burn fat 24 hours a day, you ability to burn excess body fat is really a round the clock process when you integrate strength training into your gym sessions. Moreover, your sessions will be a great deal shorter too, allowing you to leave the gym early and get a lot more done with your day.
Because your efforts are now focused on muscle building and fat burning, you will find that your midsection begins shrinking as fat disappears from your entire body to be replaced by lean muscle tissue. This is the goal that you should be pursuing for improved health, not only for the short term, but the remainder of your life.
If you need a comprehensive system for trimming your midsection, and even developing your own set of six pack abs, be sure to check out Carolyn Hansen’s book Claim Your Six Pack Abs, where she shows you how to take control of your body’s fat burning mechanism for optimum belly fat destroying results.
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