A medical journal published study from last month gave great news for people looking to lose weight.

Ninety-four women were put on caloric restricted diets and lost on average around 25-30 pounds. They were divided into three groups:

1. Aerobic training
2. Resistance training
3. No training

In addition to body fat their resting energy expenditure (their metabolic rate, how many calories they burn a day doing nothing) was measured. The result? The no-training and aerobic-training groups lost significant amounts of muscle and their metabolism decreased. The resistance training group not only didn’t lose any muscle but they gained muscle. And the icing on the cake is that their resting energy expenditure went up!

Bottom line, you MUST weight train when you are trying to lose weight if you want to maintain muscle and your metabolism.

Hunter et al.Resistance Training Conserves Fat-free Mass and Resting Energy Expenditure Following Weight Loss.
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Photo by Leo R.

I’ve lost 25 lbs after three months. I met my 5 pound goal for March.

Early January I weighed 185 and I’m 160 pounds now. I think this is the first time I’ve weighed 160 since my sophomore year in college — 2001. My upper abs are showing through and since I’ve concentrated a lot more on weight training I’ve have put on some muscle so my fat gains are likely more than 25lbs.

In March I made a few changes to my diet and exercise which I’ll outline in this post. I’ll also summarize how I got to this point for anyone new to the blog.
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