Pierre Venter @ Herbalife : Why Am I Not Losing Weight!?

The Importance Of Building Lean Muscle

You may think that you do not have to worry about how much lean muscle that you have if you are thin, and if you are not an athlete.

Though most think of men when it comes to building up muscle, this is something that women should be doing as well. Building lean muscle can have a lot of good benefits for both sexes, and has more to do with how you feel and how your body performs than how you look in your dress clothes. If you know what to do, the benefits of this are too many to count.

So let me guess….you have tried everything to get that scale to move! Reducing calories…doing daily cardio… and still…..NOTHING! How frustrating right!? Does this sound familiar to you? Ladies especially are particularly suspect to this phenomenon, so ladies listen up..I am talking to you!

Guys, take some notes…this applies to you too!

So, lets get to the FACTS shall we?

I first would like to address the difference between WEIGHT loss & FAT loss because so many people, (especially women) get caught up in what the scale says and totally dismiss the more important question you should be asking yourself-How much FAT did I lose? –After all, isn’t that what you want gone!? Scales will not give you a true picture of the success or failure of your hard efforts toward “fat loss” simply because weighing total body weight is just that TOTAL weight-which consists of everything including muscle which you DO NOT want to lose because…

While you know exercise is good for you, you may not know the importance of building muscle through strength training. If your workouts only focus on aerobic exercise, you're missing a key component of overall fitness. Gaining muscle mass offers plenty of benefits for everyone. Strength training increases lean muscle mass, which helps your body burn calories more efficiently and improves your quality of life.

Weight Control

As far as metabolism goes, muscle mass is the "engine" of the calorie-burning machine. As you strength train and increase your muscle mass, you build a bigger, more efficient engine that burns more calories and helps you lose weight. The more toned your muscles, the easier it is to maintain your weight. In fact, the higher your muscle mass, the more calories you'll burn when you rest. For every pound of muscle you gain, your body uses about 50 extra calories a day.

Increased Strength

People lose about 10 percent of their muscle by age 50, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. By the time you reach your 60s and 70s, your muscle strength will decrease by about 15 percent per decade -- and about 30 percent thereafter. However, older adults who perform adequate strength and resistance training can increase their strength as much as threefold within two to three months. Increasing your strength will help you lead a more active lifestyle infused with spontaneous activity.

Conclusion:

With that being said, lets break the senerio above of reducing calories and doing daily cardio and why this will never work for keeping the fat off for good! You see…when you reduce calories below your basal metabolic rate, which is the minimum amount of calories the body needs at rest just to keep you alive, your body goes into starvation mode! Now, understand that the body does not care that you are trying to lose weight…simply because all the body wants is to keep you alive.

Now, what do you think is the first to be lost when you start severely restricting calories? Yup…I hope you guessed it! MUSCLE. When you start severely reducing calories below that basal metabolic rate, the body says out goes the muscle and lets start storing more FAT because it thinks you are trying to starve it! NOT A GOOD IDEA as I hope you are starting to see.

Couple that calorie restriction with increased cardio in the absence of resistance/weight training and you have created a huge muscle wasting, fat storing, catabolic disaster! You will lose weight most certainly in the short term, but at what expense!?…You have burned all your fat-burning metabolically-active muscle and you will then soon discover you can no longer continue to lose any more weight.

You are now what I refer to as “skinny fat.” You may look skinnier but your body composition tells a different story. Your body has no muscle tone and therefore you look skinny and flabby at the same time! You can’t tell me that is sexy! …You also soon discover you have arrived at a familiar place that no one likes to be at…you have officially PLATEAUED! True weight loss is measured in terms of body composition and understand that it is more important to chart your body fat percentage and circumference measurements.

Measurements should be done every 6-8 Weeks to track your fat loss progress. You should also pay attention to how your clothes are fitting as a better indicator than the scale weight.