Don't lose the muscle you've already built

So with that crazy myth covered, let's get back to the main point here, which is that engaging in strength training will conserve the muscle mass you have now. Now here's why this is so important. It's very easy for your body to shed useless muscle. So if you're not using a muscle, your body will get rid of it over a few months. It's gone. But to gain that muscle back -- now that takes some effort! That could take months or years of strength training. It is much harder for your body to engage in anabolic reactions (to build muscle mass) than it is for your body to catabolize and get rid of muscles. So, if you decide you're going to starve yourself while you lose weight and get down to the minimum weight possible, and afterwards you engage in strength training, then you're going to find that it's a much more difficult process to gain lean body mass than it was to slim away what you had to begin with. Building lean body mass is a huge challenge.

It's also important to note that when people talk about weight loss, they throw that term around without really understanding what it means. Everybody says "I want to lose weight," but they don't really mean that. They mean they want to lose body fat; they don't want to just lose weight. A limb amputation will cause you to lose weight, but that's not what people have in mind! People want to lose body fat. So be careful what you wish for -- and don't use that bathroom scale as a measure of your progress. There are a number of reasons why.

One is if you just starve yourself and you start losing lean body mass, then that counts as weight loss. But you've done yourself no good whatsoever, because now you've actually lowered your metabolism. The scale says, "Hey! You lost another three pounds!" But it could be 2 lbs of fat and 1 lb of muscle, and that's not a good situation to be in. You want to lose maybe 2.9 lbs of fat and 0.1 lbs of muscle, or maybe 3 lbs of fat and no muscle. But to do that, you've got to challenge your muscular system through some weight bearing exercise.

Sponsored links

Arthritis info site

Rheumatoid arthritis

Laser hair removal

Smartphones

Hair removal

Household Appliances

Amsterdam hotels

Las Vegas homes for rent